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THE 


SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE 


FOUNDED ON 


LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 
IN 1861 AND 1863 
. BY 


F. MAX ‘MULLER, M.A. 


PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY AT OXFORD 
FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE 


IN TWO VOLUMES,.—V OL. II 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
748 anD 745 BROADWAY 
1891 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library . 


https://archive.org/details/scienceoflanguagO2mlile 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 


New MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 
PAGE 


General Principles of the Science of Language contested — 
Special Departments of the Science of Language re-examined 
— What is real in Modern is possible in Ancient Languages 
» — A-going, &c.—The Limits of Analogy—Different treatment 
for different stages of language— Phonetic Laws — Dialectic 
Regeneration—Te pi—Ukuhlonipa : ‘ : : 5 1-49 


CHAPTER II. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 


Artificial Language—The Universal Language of Leibniz—The 

Philosophical Language of Bishop Wilkins—Volapiik, Pasilingua 

— Reason and Language Inseparable — Formation of Names — 

' No Langnage without Reason — Deaf and Dumb People — Locke 
| — The Sound of Words has no independent existence . » 50-86 


CHAPTER Le 
Tue ALPHABET, 


Greek Classification of Letters —The Pratisikhyas — Modern 
Phoneticians and Elocutionists — Spelling Reformers — The Voice 


lv CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
— Strength, Pitch, and Quality — The Qualities of Vowels — The 
Vocal Organs — Vowels — Mr. Melville Bell’s System of Phonetics 
— Vowels — Consonants — Image of the Ear and Movement of the 
Tongue —The actual Alphabet— Vowels — Nasal Vowels—Conso- 
nants — Breathings—Trills—Checks or Mutes—Sonant Checks, or 
Medize—Nasal Checks—Aspirated Checks—The General Alphabet 
—Appendix, On Transliteration . : : ; : . 87-171 


CHAPTER IY. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 


Rich Alphabets—Poor Alphabets—Difference between Phonetic 
Change and Dialectic Growth—Dialectic Change—Indifferentiated 
Letters—Phonetic Idiosyncrasies—Th and F—K and T—Cause of 
Phonetic Decay—Euphony—Phonetic Habits—Double Consonants 
—Different causes of Phonetic Decay and Dialectic Change—Laws 
of Phonetic Change — Infantine Analogy — Phonetic Decay and 
Dialectic Growth in Negro-English . : 5 : » 172-227 


CHA PDT Riaave 
GRIMM’s Law. 


Is Lautverschiebung due to Phonetic Decay or to Dialectic 
Growth? — The Facts of Grimm’s Law — Object of the Fourfold 
Modification of Consonants — Treble Roots — Examples of Laut- 
verschiebung —The Theory of Grimm’s Law— Nebeneinander and 
Nacheinander —Grimm’s Law in Africa and Polynesia — Was 
High-German derived from Gothic ?— Exceptions to Grimm’s Law— 
Lottner—Grassmann—Verner—Paul’s Law—Reason of Change— 
Assibilation and Labialisation of k, g, gh — Appendix, On words 
for Fir, Oak, and Beech 7 ’ , 228-297 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VI. 
ON THE PRINCIPLES oF ETYMOLOGY. 


Guessing Etymology—Sound Etymology independent of Sound 
— Usefulness of Modern Languages — Change of Form — Change 
of Meaning — History of Words — Titles— The same Word takes 
different Forms in different Languages — The same} Word takes 
different Forms in the same Language—Different Words take the 
same Form in different Languages—Different Words may take the 


PAGE 


same Form in one and the same Language : : - 298-868 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 


True meaning of Elements — Etymology of Stoicheion — Ety- 
mology of Elementum — Roots as ultimate Facts — Conception of 
Root in India—Different views of the Nature of Roots—Bow-wow 
and Pooh-pooh Theories—What the Greeks meant by Onomatopeia 
— Greek Theories on Language — Natural Selection or Rational 
Elimination — All Names are General Terms — Clusters of 


Roots . : . ; ; . : , ; : a o60=407 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THe Roor Mar. 


Mar as Transitive—Mar as Intransitive—Various Ramifications 


of the Root Mar : ; . : : ’ : . 408-429 


CHAPTER IX. 


METAPHOR. 


Locke on Language—The Historical School—Material Meaning 


of Words — Cousin and Locke — The Power of Metaphor — The 
Metaphorical Period — Radical and Poetical Metaphor — Homo- 
nymy and -Polyonymy — The Mythic Period — Cases of Radical 


a 


vl CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
Metaphor—The Great Bear—Boves et Temo—Walnut—J erusalem 
Artichokes — La Tour sans Venin — Charis — Cases of Poetical 
Metaphor—The Golden-handed Sun—Appendix, Notes on Charis 
in reply to Dr. Sonne . ; 4 : : : : . 430-486 


CHAPTER X. 
Tur MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 


Contrast between Greek Culture and Greek Religion—Protests 
of Greek Philosophers — Ethical Interpretations — Physical Inter- 
pretations—Historical Interpretations—Biblical Interpretations— 
Mr. Gladstone’s Theory—Philological Interpretation—-Comparative 
Mythology—The Rigveda . : 3 3 ; : . 487-523 


CHAPTER XI. 
JUPITER. 


Religion and Mythology — Greek Religion — Greek Religion as 
judged by Christianity—Dyaush-pitar, Zeus-patér, Jupiter, Tyr— 
Zeus, the Supreme God— Zeus, the Sky personified—Was Dyaus 
the result of Radical or Poetical Metaphor ?—The Root Dyu 524-576 


CHAPTER XII. 


MytHs oF THE DAWN. 


Sarama and Helena — SaAraméya and Hermes — Kerberos and 
Orthros— Sundsirau—Saranyt and Erinys—Correlative Deities— 
The Riddle of the Dawn — Athéné — Minerva — Ortygia — The 
Twins Yama and Yami— Yama, the Twin—Yama, the Setting 
Sun— Yama, the God of Death — Demeter Erinys—Solar Mytho- 
logy — Meteorological Mythology — Mythology changed into 
story tk. ies pen aes ‘ Mayet! Re er 


CONTENTS. Vil 


CHAPTER XIII. 


MopERN MyTHOLOGY. 


The Influence of Language — Popular Etymology—Barnacles— 
St. Christopher — St. Ursula — Bonaventura— Symbols misunder- 
stood —Theomenia— Abstract Words— Erinys— Weird Sisters— 
The Earth— Nature — The Supernatural — Influence of Language 
on Thought—Bacon—Locke — Wilkins — Brown — Hamilton—To 
Know—To Believe—The Infinite—Philosophical Mythology 647-712 


THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 


CHAPTER I. 
NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 


[ can no longer be doubted that the language 

which we speak, and the languages that are and 
that have been spoken in every part of our globe 
since the first dawn of human life and human thought, 
supply materials capable of scientific treatment. We 
can collect them, we can classify them, we can by 
scientific analysis reduce them to their constituent 
elements, and thus discover some of the laws that 
determine their origin, govern their growth, and 
necessitate their decay. We can treat them, in fact, in 
exactly the same spirit in which the geologist treats 
his stones and petrifactions,—nay, in some respects, in 
the same spirit in which the astronomer treats the 
stars of heaven, or the botanist the flowers of the field. 
There zs a Science of Language as there is a science of 
the earth, its flowers and its stars; and though, as a 
young science, it is very far as yet from that per- 
fection which—thanks to the efforts of the intellectual 
giants of so many ages and many countries—has been 
reached in astronomy, botany, and even in geology, it 

II. B 


2 CHAPTER I. 


_is, perhaps for that very reason, all the more fas- 
cinating. It is a young and a growing science, that puts 
forth new strength with every year, that opens new 
prospects, new fields of enterprise on every side, and 
rewards its students with richer harvests than could 
be expected from the exhausted soil of the older 
sciences. The whole world is open, as it were, to the 
student of language. There is virgin soil close to our 
door, and there are whole continents still to conquer, 
if we step beyond the frontiers of the ancient seats of 
civilisation. We may select a small village in our 
neighbourhood to pick up dialectic varieties, and to 
collect phrases, proverbs, and stories which will dis- 
close fragments, almost ground to dust, it is true, yet 
undeniable fragments of the earliest formations of 
‘Saxon speech and Saxon thought.) Or we may pro- 
ceed to our very antipodes, and study the idiom of 
the Hawaian islanders, and watch in the laws and 
edicts of Kaméhaméha the working of the same human 
faculty of speech which, even in its most primitive 
efforts, never seems to miss the high end at which it 
aims. The dialects of ancient Greece, ransacked as 
they have been by classical scholars, such as Maittaire, 
Giese, and Ahrens, will amply reward a fresh battue 
of the comparative philologist. Their forms, which 


'.An essay ‘On some leading Characteristics of the Dialects spoken 
in the Six Northern Counties of England, or Ancient Northumbria, 
and on the Variations in their Grammar from that of Standard English,’ 
has been published by Mr. R. P. Peacock, Berlin, 1863. It is chiefly 
based on the versions of the Song of Solomon into many of the 
dialects of England, which have of late years been executed and 
published under the auspices of H.I.H. Prince Louis-Lucien Bona- 
parte. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 38 


to the classical scholar were mere anomalies and 
curiosities, will thus assume a different aspect. They 
will range themselves under more general laws, and 
after receiving light by a comparison with other dia- 
lects, they will, in turn, reflect that light with increased 
power on the phonetic peculiarities of Sanskrit and 
Prakrit, Zend and Persian, Latin and French. 

But even were the old mines exhausted, the Science 
of Language would create its own materials, and as 
with the rod of the prophet smite the rocks of the 
desert to call forth from them new streams of living 
speech. The rock inscriptions of Persia show what 
can be achieved by our science. J do not wonder that 
the discoveries due to the genius and the persevering 
industry of Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and last, not 
least, of Rawlinson, should seem incredible to those 
who only glance at them from a distance. Their in- 
credulity will hereafter prove the greatest compliment 
that could have been paid to these eminent scholars.! 
What we at present call the cuneiform inscriptions 
of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I., Darius IL., 


* A thoroughly scholar-like answer to the late Sir G. C. Lewis’s 
attacks on Champollion and other decipherers of ancient inscriptions 
may be seen in an article by Professor Le Page Renouf, ‘ Sir G. C. Lewis 
on the Decipherment and Interpretation of Dead Languages,’ in the 
Atlantis, Nos. vii. and viii. p. 23. Though it cannot be known now 
whether the late Sir G. C. Lewis ever modified his opinions as to the 
soundness of the method through which the inscriptions of Egypt, 
Persia, India, and ancient Italy have been deciphered, such was the 
uprightness of his character that he would certainly have been the first 
to acknowledge his mistake, had he been spared to continue his studies. 
Though his scepticism was occasionally uncritical and unfair, his logs is 
a severe loss to our studies, which, more than any others, require to be 
kept in order by the watchful eye and uncompromising criticism of 
close reasoners and sound scholars. 


B 2 


4. CHAPTER I. 


Artaxerxes Mnemon, Artaxerxes Ochus (of which we 
now have several editions, translations, grammars, 
and dictionaries)—what were they originally? A mere 
conglomerate of wedges, engraved or impressed on 
the solitary monument of Cyrus in the Murghab, on 
the ruins of Persepolis, on the rocks of Behistun near 
the frontiers of Media, and the precipice of Van in 
Armenia. When Grotefend attempted to decipher 
them, he had first to prove that these scrolls were 
really inscriptions, and not mere arabesques or fan- 
ciful ornaments.! _He had then to find out whether 
these magical characters were to be read horizontally 
or perpendicularly, from right to left, or from left to 
right. Lichtenberg maintained that they must be 
read in the same direction as Hebrew. Grotefend, 
in 1802, proved that the letters followed each other, 
as in Greek, from left to right. Even before Grote- 
fend, Munter and Tychsen had observed that there 
was a sign to separate the words. Such a sign is of 
course an immense help in all attempts at deciphering 
inscriptions, for it lays bare at once the terminations 
of hundreds of words, and, in an Aryan language, 
supplies us with the skeleton of its grammar. Yet 
consider the difficulties that had still to be overcome 
before a single line could be read. It was unknown 
in what language these inscriptions were composed ; 
it might have been a Semitic, a Turanian, or an 
Aryan language. It was unknown to what period 
they belonged, and whether they commemorated the 


‘ Mémoire de M. le comte de Caylus, sur les ruines de Persepolis, 
dans le tome XXIX des Mémoires de l Académie des inscriptions et 
belles-lettres, Histoire de ? Académie, p. 118. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 5 


conquests of Cyrus, Darius, Alexander, or Sapor. It 
was unknown whether the alphabet used was pho- 
netic, syllabic, or ideographic. It would detain us 
too long were I to attempt to explain here how all 
these difficulties were removed one after the other ; 
how the proper names of Darius, Xerxes, Hystaspes, 
and of their god Ormazd, were traced ; how from them 
the values of certain letters were determined ; how 
with an imperfect alphabet other words were de- 
ciphered which clearly established the fact that the 
language of these inscriptions was ancient Persian ; 
how then, with the help of the Zend, which represents 
the Persian language previous to Darius, and with the 
help of the later Persian, a most effective cross-fire 
was opened; how even more powerful ordnance was 
brought up from the arsenal of the ancient Sanskrit ; 
how outpost after outpost was driven in, a practical 
breach effected, till at last the fortress had to surrender 
and submit to the terms dictated by the Science of 
Language. 

It was a most glorious siege and a most glorious 
victory. At present I only refer to it in order to show 
how, in all quarters of the globe, and from sources 
where it would least be expected, new materials are 
forthcoming that would give employment to a much 
larger class of labourers than the Science of Lan- 
guage can as yet boast of. The inscriptions of 
Babylon and Nineveh, the hieroglyphics of Egypt, 
the records in the caves of India, on the monuments 
of Lycia, on the tombs of Etruria, and on the broken 
tablets of Umbria and Samnium, all wait to have their 
spell broken or their riddle more satisfactorily read 


6 CHAPTER I. 


by the student of language. If, then, we turn our 
eyes again to the yet unnumbered dialects now 
spoken by the nomad tribes of Asia, Africa, America, 
and the islands of the Pacific, no scholar need be 
afraid for some generations to come that there will 
be no language left for him to conquer. 


General Principles of the Science of Language contested. 


There is another charm peculiar to the Science of 
Language, or one, at least, which it shares only with 
its younger sisters; I mean the vigorous contest that 
is still carried on between great opposing principles. 
In Astronomy, the fundamental laws of the universe 
are no longer contested, and the Ptolemean system is 
not likely to find new supporters. In Geology, the 
feuds between the Vulcanists and the Neptunists have - 
come to an end, and no unprejudiced person doubts at 
the present moment whether an ammonite be a work 
of nature and a flinthead a work of art. It is different 
in the Science of Language. Here, the controversies 
about the great problems have not yet subsided. The 
questions whether language is a work of nature or 
a work of art, whether languages had one or many 
beginnings, whether they can be classified in families, 
or no, are constantly starting up; and scholars, even 
while engaged in the most minute inquiries—while 
carrying brick and mortar to build the walls of their 
new science—must have their sword girded by their 
side, always ready to meet the enemy. This, no 
doubt, may sometimes be tedious, but it has one good 
effect—it leads us to examine carefully the ground on 
which we take our stand, and keeps us alive, even 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 7 


while analysing mere prefixes and suffixes, to the 
grandeur and the sacredness of the issues that depend 
on these minutiz. The foundations of our science 
do not suffer from such attacks; on the contrary, 
like the coral cells built up quietly and patiently from 
the bottom of the sea, they become more strongly 
cemented by these whiffs of spray that are dashed 
across them. 

Much useless controversy has been carried on, for 
instance, as to whether the Science of Language is to 
be treated as a physical science or not. I thought I 
had made it sufficiently clear in what sense it may be 
so treated, and in what sense it should be ranged 
among the historical sciences. But there is a charm 
in controversy which to a certain class of scholars 
seems irresistible. They ignore your definitions, and 
then show that you have been quite wrong. They 
have nothing new to say, but they repeat the old 
arguments with all the emphasis of a real discoverer. 
However, though different scholars may take different 
views on this point, one thing seems to me clearer 
than ever, namely, that, without the Science of 

Language, the circle of the physical sciences, would 
remain for ever incomplete. The whole natural 
creation tends towards man: without man nature 
would be purposeless. The Science of Man, therefore, 
or, as it is sometimes called, Anthropology, must form 
the crown of all the natural sciences. And if it is 
language by which man differs from all other created 
things, the Science of Language has a right to hold 
that place which I claimed for it from the first. I 
may here quote the words of one whose memory 


8 CHAPTER I. 


becomes more dear and sacred to me with every year, 
and to whose friendship I owe more than I here could 
say. Bunsen, when addressing, in 1847, the newly- 
formed section of Ethnology, at the meeting of the 
British Association at Oxford, said :— 


If man is the apex of the creation, it seems right, on the one 
side, that an historical inquiry into his origin and development 
should never be allowed to sever itself from the general body 
of natural science, and in particular from physiology. But, on 
the other hand, if man is the apex of the creation; if he isthe 
end to which all organic formations tend from the very begin- 
ning; if man is at once the mystery and the key of natural 
science ; if that is the only view of natural science worthy of 
our age, then ethnological philology, once established on prin- 
ciples as clear as the physiological are, is the highest branch 
of that science for the advancement of which this Association is 
instituted. It is not an appendix to physiology or to anything 
else ; but its object is, on the contrary, capable of becoming the 
end and goal of the labours and transactions of a scientific 
association.’ 


Special Departments of the Science of Language re-examined. 


But while the general principles which ought to 
guide the study of the Science of Language may be 
considered as fairly settled, great diversity of opinion 
continues to prevail when we come to its special de- 
partments. 

It might have been supposed that Bopp’s theory of 
a relationship between Aryan and Malayo-Polynesian 
languages was by this time consigned to oblivion. 
But, undeterred by Bopp’s failure, Dr. J. Rae, in some 


' Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
1847, p. 257. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 9 


papers printed at Honolulu,' has propounded the same 
theory afresh, ‘that all those tongues which we desig- 
nate as the Indo-European languages have their 
true root and origin in the Polynesian language.’ 
‘T am certain, the author writes, ‘that this is the 
case as regards the Greek and Sanskrit: I find reason 
to believe it to be so as to the Latin and other more 
modern tongues—in short, as to all European lan- 
guages, old and young. And he proceeds: ‘The 
second discovery which I believe I have made, and 
with which the former is connected, is that the study 
of the Polynesian language gives us the key to the 
original function of language itself, and to its whole 
mechanism.’ 

Strange as it may sound to hear the language of 
Homer and Ennius spoken of as an offshoot of the 
Sandwich Islands, mere ridicule would be a very 
inappropriate and very inefficient answer to such 
a theory. It is after all not so very long ago that all 
the Greek and Latin scholars of Europe shook their 
heads at the idea of tracing the roots of the classical 
languages back to Sanskrit; and even at the present 
moment there are still many persons who cannot 
realise the fact that, at a very remote, but a very real 
period in the history of the world, the ancestors of 
the Homeric poets and of the poets of the Veda must 
have lived together as members of one and the same 
race, as speakers of one and the same idiom, and as 
believers in the same gods. 


1 The Polynesian: Honolulu, Sept. 27, Oct. 4, Oct. 11, 1862—contain- 
ing an essay by Dr. J. Rae. Similar attempts have since been made by 
several writers, but without achieving any greater success than Bopp. 


10 CHAPTER I, 


There are other theories not less startling than 
this which would make the Polynesian the primi- 
tive language of mankind. In his Comparative 
Grammar of the South-African Languages, printed 
at the Cape, Dr. Bleek,! a most learned and ingenious 
scholar, tried to prove that, with the exception of the 
Bushman tongue, which had not yet been sufficiently 
studied by him, the great mass of African languages 
may be reduced to two families. He tries to show 
that the Hottentot is a branch of the North African 
class of languages,? and that it was separated from its 
relatives by the intrusion of the second great family, 


1 A Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages, by 
W. H. J. Bleek, Ph.D. 1862. 

* When the Rev. R. Moffat was in England, he met with a Syrian 
who had recently arrived from Egypt, and in reference to whom Mr, 
Moffat has the following note:—‘On my giving him a specimen and 
a description of the Hottentot language, he remarked that he had seen 
slaves in the market of Cairo, brought a great distance from the in- 
terior, who spoke a similar language, and were not near so dark-coloured 
as slaves in general, This corroborates the statement of ancient authors, 
whose description of a people inhabiting the interior regions of Northern 
Africa answers to that of the Hottentot and Bushman.’—‘ It may be 
conceived as possible, therefore, that the people here alluded to form 
a portion of the Hottentot race, whose progenitors remained behind in 
the interior country, to the south or south-west of Egypt, whilst the 
general emigration continued its onward course. Should this prove not 
incorrect, it might be reasonably conjectured that Egypt is the country 
from which the Hottentot tribes originally came. This supposition, 
indeed, is strengthened by the resemblance which appears to subsist 
between the Copts and Hottentots in general appearance.’ (Appleyard, 
Lhe Kafir Language. 1850.) ‘Since the Hottentot race is known only 
as a receding one, and traces of its existence extend into the interior of 
South Africa, it may be looked upon as a fragment of the old and properly 
Ethiopic population, stretched along the mountain-spine of Africa, 
through the regions now occupied by the Galla; but cut through and 
now enveloped by tribes of a different stock.’ (J. C. Adamson, in 
Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. iv. p. 449. 1854.) 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE, 11] 


the Kafir, or, as Appleyard calls them, Alditeral lan- 
euages, which occupy (as far as our knowledge ges) 
the whole remaining portion of the South African 
continent, extending on the eastern side from the 
Keiskamma to the equator, and on the western side 
from 32° southern to about 8° northern latitude. But 
the same author claims likewise a very prominent 
place for the African idioms, in the general history of 
human speech. ‘It is perhaps not too much to say, 
he writes (preface, page viii.), ‘that similar results 
may at present be expected from a deeper study of 
such primitive forms of language as the Kafir and the 
Hottentot exhibit, as followed at the beginning of the 
century, the discovery of Sanskrit, and the compara- 
tive researches of Oriental scholars. The origin of 
the grammatical forms, of gender and number, the 
etymology of pronouns, and many other questions of 
the highest interest to the philologist, find their true 
solution in Southern Africa.’ 

But, while we are thus told by some scholars that 
we must look to Polynesia and South Africa if we 
would find the clue to the mysteries of Aryan speech, 
we are warned by others that there is no such thing 
as an Aryan or Indo-European family of languages, 
that Sanskrit has no relationship with Greek, and that 
Comparative Philology, as hitherto treated by Bopp 
and others, is but a dream of continental professors." 

1 See Mr. John Crawfurd’s essay On the Aryan or Indo-Germanic 
Theory, and an article by Professor T. Hewitt Key in the Transactions 
of the Philological Society, ‘The Sanskrit Language, as the Basis of Lin- 
guistic Science, and the Labours of the German School in that field, are 


they not overvalued?’ An unfounded accusation by Professor Key was 
answered in the Academy, 1874, p. 48. 


12 CHAPTER I. 


In other departments too we are met with similar 
controversies. While some scholars represent Akka- 
dian as the true Sanskrit of the North Turanian or Ural- 
Altaic languages, others deny that it is a language, 
and look upon it merely as a peculiar system of writ- 
ing. While Etruscan has been represented as Aryan, 
as Semitic, and as Bask, a recent writer has asserted 
its relationship with Finnish, and the same Finnish 
has been proclaimed as the true source of the whole 
family of Aryan speech. | 

How are theories and counter-theories of this kind 
to be treated? However startling and paradoxical 
in appearance, they must be carefully examined before 
we can either accept or reject them. ‘Science, as 
Bunsen? said, ‘excludes no suppositions, however 
strange they may appear, which are not in themselves 
absurd—viz. demonstrably contradictory to its own 
principles.’ 

But by what tests and rules are they to be ex- 
amined? They can only be examined by those tests 
and rules which the Science of Language has esta- 
blished in its more limited areas of research. ‘We 
must begin, as Leibniz said, ‘with studying the 
modern languages which are within our reach, in 
order to compare them with one another, to discover 
their differences and affinities, and then to proceed 
to those which have preceded them in former ages; 
in order to show their filiation and their origin, and 
then to ascend step by step to the most ancient of 
tongues, the analysis of which must lead us to the 


1 Lc. p. 256, 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 18 


only trustworthy conclusions. The principles of 
comparative philology must rest on the evidence of 
the best known and the best analysed dialects, and it 
is to them that we must look, if we wish for a com- 
pass to guide us through the most violent storms and 
hurricanes of philological speculation." 

I believe there is no science from hiner we, the 
students of language, may learn more than from. 
Geology. Now, in Geology, if we have once acquired 
a general knowledge of the successive strata that form 
the crust of the earth, and of the faunas and floras 
present or absent in each, nothing is so instructive as 
the minute exploration of a quarry close at hand, of 
a cave or a mine, in order to see things with our own 
eyes, to handle them, and to learn how every pebble 
that we pick up points a lesson of the widest range. 
I believe it is the same in the science of language. 
One word, however common, of our own dialect, if 
well examined and analysed, will teach us more than 
the most ingenious speculations on the nature of 
speech and the origin of roots. We may accept it, I 
believe, as a general principle, that what is real in 
modern formations is possible in more ancient 
formations; that what has been found to be true on 
a small scale may be true on a larger scale. There 1s 
analogy in language everywhere, and there 1s an 
unbroken continuity between the most ancient and 
the most modern forms of speech. Principles like 
these, which underlie the study of Geology, are equally 
applicable to the study of Philology, though in their 
application they require, no doubt, the same circum- 


1 Lectures on the Science of Language, First Series, p. 145. 


14 CHAPTER I. 


spectness which is the great charm of geological 
-reasoning. 


What is real in Modern is possible in Ancient Languages. 


A few instances will make my meaning clearer by 
showing how the solution of some of the most difficult 
problems of Comparative Grammar may be found at 
our very door, and how theories that would seem 
fanciful and incredibie, if applied to the analysis of 
ancient languages, stand before us as real and undeni- 
able facts in the words which we use in our every-day 
conversation. They will at the same time serve as a 
warning against too rapid generalisation, both on the 
part of those who have no eye for distinctive features 
and see nothing but similarity in all the languages of 
the world, and on the part of those who can perceive 
but one kind of likeness, and who would fain confine 
the whole ocean of living speech within the narrow 
bars of Aryan or Semitic grammar. 


A-going. 

We have not very far to go in order to hear such 
phrases as ‘he is a-going, I am a-coming, &c.,’ instead 
of the more usual ‘he is going, lam coming. Now 
the fact is, that the vulgar or dialectic expression, ‘ he 
is a-going, is far more correct than ‘he is going. ! 
Ing, in our modern grammars, is called the termination 
of the participle present, but it does not exist as such 
in Anglo-Saxon. In Anglo-Saxon the termination of 
that participle is ande or inde (Gothic, and-s; Old 


* Archdeacon Hare, Words corrupted by False Analogy or False 
Derivation, p. 65. 


NEW MATERTALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 15 


High-German ant-’r, ent-r; Middle High-German, 
end-e; Modern High-German, end). This was pre- 
served as late as Gower’s and Chaucer's time, ' though 
in most cases it had then already been supplanted by 
the termination ing.2- Now what is that termination 
ing?® It is clearly used in two different senses, even 
in modern English. If we say ‘a loving child, loving 
is a verbal adjective. If we say ‘ loving our neighbour 
is our highest duty,’ loving is a verbal substantive. 
Again, there are many substantives in ing, such as 
building, wedding, meeting, where the verbal cha- 
racter of the substantive is almost, if not entirely, 
lost. 

Now, if we look to Anglo-Saxon, we find the ter- 
mination ing used— 

(1) To form patronymics—for instance, Godwul/- 
ing, the son of Godwulf. In the A.S. translation of 
the Bible, the son of Hlisha is called Hliseng. In the 
plural these patronymics frequently become the names 
of families, clans, villages, towns, and nations, e.g. 
Thyringas, the Thuringians. Even if names in ig are 
derived from names of rivers or hills or trees, they may 
still be called patronymics, because in ancient times 
the ideas of relationship and descent were not confined 
to living beings. People living near the Elbe might 
well be called the sons of the Elbe or Albings, as, for 


: Pointis and sleves be wel sittande 
Full right and straight upon the hande. 
Rom. of the Rose, 2264. 
2 Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, p, 666. 
3 Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, ii. 348-865. 
4 See Férstemann, Die Deutschen Ortsnamen, p. 244; and Zeitschrife 
fiir Vergleichende Sprachforschung, i. 109, 


16 CHAPTER I. 


instance, the Nordalbingi in Holstein. Many of the 
geographical names in England and Germany were 
originally such patronymics. Thus we have the vil- 
lages! of Malling, of Billing, &c., or in compounds, 
Mallington, Billingborough. In Walsingham, the home 
of the Walsings, the memory of the famous race of the 
Wealsings may have been preserved, to which Siegfried 
belonged, the hero of the Nibelunge.? In German 
names, such as Gédttungen in Hanover, Harlingen in 
Holland, we have old datives plural, in the sense of 
‘among the Gottings, or, near the home of the Har- 
lings,’ &c.® 

What we call patronymics, however, are not only 
words derived from the name of a father, but likewise 
words expressing any kind of relationship or nearness. 
Thus Buccingas need not be taken as the sons of the 
beech, or, as has actually been suggested, as a clan 
having the beech for its totem, but simply as men 
from the beeches, i.e. living among the beeches. Hence 
Buckingham, the home of the beech-men. In like 
manner the bircingas were men from the birches, 


1 Latham, History of the English Language, i. p. 223; Kemble, 
Saxons in England, i. p. 59, and Appendix, p. 449. 

? Grimm, Deutsche Heldensage, p. 14. 

* Harlings, in A.S. Herelingas (Trav. Song, i. 224), Harlunge (W. 
Grimm, Deut. Heldensage, p. 280, &c.), are found at Harling in Norfolk 
and Kent, and at Harlington (Herelingattin) in Bedfordshire and Mid- 
dlesex. The Welsings, in Old Norse Vélsungar, the family of Sigurd 
or Siegfried, reappear at Walsingham in Norfolk, Wolsingham in 
Northumberland, and Woolsingham in Durham. The Billings at Bil- 
linge, Billingham, Billinghoe, Billinghurst, Billingden, Billington, and 
many other places. The Thyringas, in Thorington or Thorrington, are 
likely to be offshoots of the great Hermunduric race, the Thyringi or 
Thoringi, now Thuringians, always neighbours of the Saxons.—Kemble, 
Saxons in Engl., i. pp. 59 and 68. Grimm, Deutsche Gram., II, 349. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE, 17 


Asscingas, men from the ashes; and a name such as 
Dartington has to be explained as the town of the 
Dartings, i.e. the men living on the river Dart.’ 

(2) Ing is used to form more general attributive 
words, such as, wpeling, a man of rank; lyteling, an 
infant; niSing, a bad man. This ing being frequently 
preceded by another suffix, the /, we arrive at the very 
common derivative ling, in such words as darling, — 
hireling, yearling, foundling, nestling, worldling, 
changeling. It is doubtful, in fact, whether even in 
such words as epeling, lyteling, derived from «pel 
and lytel, the suffix is not rather ding than ing, and 
whether the original spelling was not ebelling and 
lytelling. Farthing, too, is a corruption of feordling, 
German vierling. 

It has been supposed that the modern English 
participle was formed by the same derivative, but in 
A.S. the suffix ing is (as a rule)” attached to nouns 
and adjectives, and not to verbs. There was, how- 
ever, another derivative in A.S., which was attached 
to verbs in order to form verbal substantives. This 
was wng, the German wng. For instance, clenswng, 
cleansing; bedcnwng, beaconing, beckoning, &c. In 
early A.S. these abstract nouns in wng are far more 
numerous than those in ing Ing, however, began 
soon to encroach on wng, and at present no trace is 


1 See several articles in the Atheneum of 1885, pp. 152, 188, 216, 
312. 

2 See Koch, Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache, vol. iii. 
§ 108. 

$ See Koch, Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache, vol. ili. 
§ 106. 


Il. C 


18 CHAPTER TI. 


left in English of substantives derived from verbs by 
means of ung. 

Although, as I said, it might seem more plausible 
to look on the modern participle in English as origin- 
ally an adjective in 7ng, such popular phrases as 
a-going, a-thinking, point rather to the verbal substan- 
tives in ing as the source from which the modern 
English participle was derived. ‘I am going’ is in 
reality a corruption of ‘I am a-going, i.e. ‘I am on 
going, and the participle present would thus, by 
a very simple process, be traced back to a locative 
case of a verbal noun.1 

It has been objected that the preposition @ in a- 
going cannot be arbitrarily dropt before a case de- 
pendent on it, least of all in languages deprived of 
the power of their original inflections. This assertion 
is bold, but 1t 1s not true. If we confine ourselves to 
a comparison of Anglo-Saxon with English, and to 
the very preposition on, we find in Anglo-Saxon on 
bec, at the back; in later English, a back; and at 
last back. Go back stands for go aback. 

Again, we read in Shakespeare :— 

The spring is near when green geese are a breeding. 
(Love’s Labour's Lost, 1. 1.) 


There are worthies a coming. (Ibid. v. 2.) 


Like a German clock, still a repairing, ever out of frame. 
(bid. iii. 1.) 


* Cf. Garnett’s paper ‘On the Formation of Words from Inflected 
Cases,’ Philological Society, vol. iii. No. 54,1847. Garnett compares the 
Welsh yn sefyll, in standing, Ir. ag seasamh, on standing, the Gaelic ag 
sealgadh. The same ingenious scholar was the first to propose the 
theory of the participle being formed from the locative of a verbal 
noun. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 19 


In all these cases a modern English poet would drop 
the preposition a, which stands for Anglo-Saxon on. 
(See Matzner, Englische Grammatzk, i. p. 400.) 

Jt has likewise been objected, and not without 
ingenuity, that if I am beating were an abbreviation 
of I am a beating, it could not govern the accusa- 
tive, because no substantive in ing can govern the 
accusative. This assertion is again bold, but it is not — 
true. In such phrases as ‘after flogging him, by 
flogging him, by means of flogging him,’ flogging 1s 
surely a verbal substantive in ing, whatever theory 
we adopt about such phrases as ‘he was flogging 
him. Substantives in 7ng, therefore, certainly can 
govern the accusative. And if we can say ‘he was 
repairing, instead of ‘he was a repairing, we can 
likewise say ‘he was repairing the clock, instead of 
‘he was a repairing the clock.’ 

It would, no doubt, be far simpler if ang, the 
modern termination of the participle present in 
English, could be taken, as it used to be, as a mere 
phonetic corruption of the Anglo-Saxon termination 
ende. A change from ende to ing, however, 18 
without any analogy in English, and scholars who 
wished to maintain it at all hazards, could bring 
nothing better in support of it than the spoken 
dialect of Henneberg, in which we have been told 
over and over mean a similar consonantal change 
has taken place. 

Now here we must guard against too rapid general- 
isation. First of all, phonetic changes between 
Anglo-Saxon and English cannot be accounted for 
by an analogy taken hae the dialect of Henneberg, 

C 2 


20 CHAPTER I. 


They must be explained according to phonetic laws 
peculiar to the language of England, or to other 
Low-German dialects, but not according to those of 
one out of many High-German dialects which are 
supposed to contain some admixture of Low-German 
elements. 

Secondly, what has to be explained is not only the 
consonantal change from ende to ing, which is said to 
have taken place in the dialect of Henneberg, but the 
co-existence of participles in ende and ing. The two 
texts of Layamom vary between singinge and sing- 
ende, sechinge and sechende; and while in v. 26,946, 
text A has tng, and B ende, the case is reversed in 
vy. 1,888, where A has ende, and B inge. We even 
meet in text B with such phrases as ne goinde ne 
vidinge. (Koch, Grammatik der Englischen Sprache, 
i. p. 842.) Is this the case in the dialect of Henne- 
berg? Do we really find there the two forms used 
by the same speaker, or do we witness a consonantal 
change from the old Hennebergian participle in ende 
to the modern Hennebergian participle in ing? All 
that can be gathered from Reinwald (Hennebergisches 
Tdiotikon) is that ‘ing is not scarce, but on the con- 
trary the regular active participle of our people. 
Supposing, therefore, that all was right in Henneberg, 
we should only have before us another problem, 
another form that requires explanation, but we 
should by no means have witnessed a consonantal 
change from ende to ing. To explain the English 
ing by the Hennebergian ing would be to explain 
ignotum per ignotius. 

And, lastly, are there really any participles in ing 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE, 2] 


to be found in Henneberg? Grimm said so, and, with 
their usual sequacity, other scholars have repeated it 
after him. Now Grimm for once has made a mistake. 
The termination of the participle in English is ing, 
and this ing is attached to the verbal base, like the 
termination wng which it has supplanted. The same 
applies to the participial termination nde. It is 
always attached to the base, not to the infinitive. 
Hence in Anglo-Saxon, bér-an, to bear, and bér-e-nde, 
bearing ; in German, lieb-en, to love, lieb-end, loving. 
What do we find in Henneberg? Reinwald gives such 
instances as schlaffe-ning, schlaf-end, sleep-ing ; blin- 
zer-ning, blinzel-nd, blink-ing ; lache-ning, lach-end, 
laugh-ing ; forchte-ning, fiircht-end, fear-ing. And 
he adds distinctly: ‘ing is not attached to the root, 
but to the complete High-German infinitive; or, if 
we cannot admit that the people of Henneberg recog- 
nised such an infinitive, en or 1s inserted between 
their popular infinitive and the termination ing. 

Thus vanishes this much talked-of Hennebergian 
participle in zng! We never find there the suffix ing 
replacing end in the participle of the present, but we 
find a suffix ning.1 We never find the consonantal 
change from nde to ing; but if ning in Henneberg 
represented an original nde, we should really have to 
admit a change from de to ing.” 


1 Tormeling, taumelnd, Reinwald, vol. ii. p. 18, is a misprint for 
térmelning ; see vol. i. p. 169, and pref. p. ix. 

2 Bopp’s theory of the English participle in ing is this :—‘ In English,’ 
he writes, ‘and frequently in Anglo-Saxon too, ing takes the place of 
the German wng in the formation of abstract substantives. As ad- 
jectives, the forms in ing have entirely supplanted in modern English 
the old participle in end, while in Middle English forms in end and ing 


22 CHAPTER TI. 


One more word about Henneberg! In the dialect 
of Henneberg the substantive termination wng 1s 
pronounced ing. We find Ubing, Verwésseling, Ver- 
wonnering, instead of Ubung, Verwechselung, Ver- 
wunderung. This is the only light High the 
Thuringian dialect throws on the change of Anglo- 
Saxon ung into English ing, though, as Grimm 
remarked, the suffix ing extends far beyond 
Thuringia. 

We may now accept it as a fact, that the place of 
the participle present may, in the progress of dialectic 
regeneration, be supplied by the locative, or some 
other case of a verbal noun. 

Now let us look to French. On June 8, 1679, the 
French Academy decreed that the participles present 
should no longer be declined.! 

What was the meaning of this decree? Simply 
what may now be found in every French grammar, 
namely, that commencant, finissant, are indeclinable 
when they have the meaning of the participle present, 
active or neuter; but that they take the terminations 
of the masculine and feminine, in the singular and 


exist still together. I do not believe, therefore, as Grimm supposes in 
the second part of his Grammar (p. 356), that ing in the English 
participles is a corruption of end, because e does not easily change to 4, 
4 being more frequently a corruption of e. If verbal adjectives in ing 
existed in Anglo-Saxon, Bopp’s theory would certainly remove all 
difficulties. We should then have to admit two forms, substantives in 
ung and adjectives in ing, converging into the modern English par- 
ticiple in ing. But no such adjectives exist in Anglo-Saxon, and I do 
not see how to explain their sudden appearance except by adopting the 
theory of the late Mr. Garnett. 

' Of. Egger, Notions élémentaires de Grammaire comparée: Paris, 
1856, p. 197. ‘La régle est faite. On ne déclinera plus les participes 
présents. —B. Jullien, Cours supérieur, i. p. 186. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 20 


plural, if they are used as adjectives." But what is 
the reason of this rule? Simply this, that chantant, 
if used as a participle, is not the Latin participle 
present cantans, but the so-called gerund; that is to 
say, the oblique case of a verbal noun, the Latin 
cantando, corresponding to the English a-singing, while 
the real Latin participle present, cantans, is used in 
the Romance languages as an adjective, and takes 
the feminine termination— for instance, ‘wne femme 
souffrante, &c. 

Here, then, we see once more that in analytical lan- 
cuages the idea conveyed by the participle present 
can be expressed by the oblique case of a verbal noun. 

Let us now proceed to a more distant, yet to a 
cognate language, the Bengali. We there®* find that 
the so-called infinitive is formed by te, which te is 
at the same time the termination of the locative sin- 
gular. Hence the present, Kariteki, I am doing, 
and the imperfect, Karitekilam, I was doing, are 
mere compounds of aki, I am, Akilam, I was, with 
what may be called a participle present, but what 1s 
in reality a verbal noun in the locative. Kariteki, 
I do, means ‘I am on doing,’ or ‘I am a-doing.’ 

Now the question arises, Does this perfectly in- 
telligible method of forming the participle from the 
oblique case of a verbal noun, and of forming the 
present indicative by compounding this verbal noun 
with the auxiliary verb ‘to be, supply us with a test 

1 Diez, Vergleichende Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, ii. 
( “ti M.’s. Essay on the Relation of the Bengali to the Aryan and Ab- 


original Languages of India. Report of the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science 1847, pp. 844-45. Cf Garnett, iacap. 29. 


24, CHAPTER I. 


that may be safely applied to the analysis of lan- 
guages which decidedly belong to a different family 
of speech? Let us take the Bask, which is certainly 
neither Aryan nor Semitic, and which has thrown 
out a greater abundance of verbal forms than almost 
any known language.' Here the present is formed 
by what is calleda participle, followed by an auxiliary 
verb. This participle, however, is formed by the 
sufix an, and the same suffix is used to form the 
locative case of nouns. For instance, mendia, the 
mountain; mendiaz, from the mountain ; mendian, in 
the mountain; mendico, for the sake of the moun- 
tain. In like manner, etchean, in the house: ohean, 
in the bed. If, then, we examine the verb, 


erorten niz, I fall; 
» hiz, thou fallest ; 
5 -dasyhe fails: 


we see again in erorten a locative, or, as it is called, a 
positive case of the verbal substantive erorta, the root 
of which would be eror, falling ;? so that the indica- 
tive present of the Bask verb does not mean either J 
fall, or Lam falling, but was intended originally for 
‘I (am) in the act of falling,’ or, to return to the point 
from whence we started, J am on falling, I am a- 
falling, I am falling. 

This must suffice as an illustration of one of the 
principles on which the Science of Language rests, 
viz. that what is real in modern formations must be 


* See Inchauspe’s Le Verbe basque, published by Prince Louis-Lucien 
Bonaparte. Bayonne, 1858. 

* Cf, Dissertation critique et apologétique sur la Langue basque (par 
Yabbé Darrigol). Bayonne, p. 102. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE, 25 


admitted as probable, or at least as possible, in 
more ancient formations, and that what has been 
found to be true on a small scale may be true on a 
larger scale. 


The Limits of Analogy. 


But the same illustration may also serve as a 
warning. There is much in the science of language — 
to tempt us to overstep the legitimate limits of induc- 
tive reasoning. We may infer from the known to the 
unknown in language tentatively, but not positively. 
It does not follow, even within so small a sphere as 
the Aryan family of speech, that what is possible 
in French is possible in Latin, that what explains 
Bengali will explain Sanskrit; nay, the similarity 
between some of the Aryan languages and the Bask 
in the formation of their participles should be con- 
sidered as an exceptional case. Mr. Garnett, however, 
after establishing the principle that the participle 
present may be expressed by the locative of a verbal 
noun, endeavours in his excellent paper to show that 
the original Indo-European participle, the Latin 
amans, the Greek typton, the Sanskrit bodhat, 
were formed on the same principle :—that they are 
all inflected cases of a verbal noun. In this, I believe, 
he has failed, as many have failed before and after 
him, by imagining that what has been found to be 
true in one portion of the vast kingdom of speech 


1 He takes the Sanskrit dravat as a possible ablative, likewise 
sas-at, and tan-vat (sic). It would be impossible to form ablatives 
in at (as) from verbal bases raised by the vikaramas of the special 
tenses, nor would the ablative be so appropriate a case as the locative, 
for taking the place of a verbal adjective. 


26 CHAPTER I. 


must be equally true in all. This isnot so, and cannot 
be so. 


Different treatment for different stages of language. 


Though language is governed by intelligible prin- 
ciples throughout the whole of its growth, its progress 
is not so uniform as to repeat exactly the same 
phenomena at every stage. As the geologist looks 
for different characteristics when he has to deal with 
London clay, with Oxford clay, or with old red sand- 
stone, the student of language, too, must be prepared 
for different formations, even though he confines him- 
self to one stage only in the history of language, the 
inflectional. And if he steps beyond this, the most 
modern stage, then to apply indiscriminately to the 
lower stages of human speech, to the agglutinative 
and radical, the same tests which have proved suc- 
cessful in the inflectional, would be like ignoring the 
difference between aqueous, igneous, and metamorphic 
rocks. There are scholars who, as it would seem, are 
incapable of appreciating more than one kind of 
evidence. 

If languages were all of one and the same texture, 
they might be unravelled, no doubt, with the same 
tools. But as they are not—and this is admitted by 
all—it is surely mere waste of valuable time to attempt 
to test the relationship of Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkie, 
Samoyedic, and Finnie dialects by the same criteria 
by which the common descent of Greek and Latin 
is established ; or to try to discover Sanskrit in the 
Malay dialects, or Greek in the idioms of the Cau- 
casian mountaineers. The whole crust of the earth 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 27 


is not made of lias, swarming with Ammonites and 
Plesiosauri, nor is all language made of Sanskrit, 
teeming with Supines and Paulo-pluperfects. 


Phonetic Laws. 


Up to a certain point the method by which so 
great results have been achieved in classifying the 
Aryan languages may be applicable to other clusters 
of speech. Phonetic laws are always useful, but they 
are not the only tools which the student of language 
must learn to handle. If we compare the extreme 
members of the Polynesian dialects, we find but little 
agreement in what may be called their grammar, and 
many of their words seem totally distinct. But if we 
compare their numerals we clearly see that these are 
common property ; we perceive similarity, though at 
the same time great diversity :' 


it 2 3 4 5 
Fakaafoan tasi lua,ua _ tolu fa lima 
Samoan tasi lua tolu fa lima 
Tongan taha ua tolu fa, nima 
New Zealand tahi rua toru wa rima 
Rarotongan tai rua toru a rima 
Mangarevan tai rua toru a rima 

6 ee 8 9 10 
Fakaafoan ono fitu valu iva fulu, nafulu 
Samoan ono fitu valu iva sefulu, nafulu 
Tongan ono fitu valu hiva honofulu 
New Zealand ono witu waru iwa nahuru 
Rarotongan ono itu varu iva nauru 
Mangarevan ono itu varu iva nauru 


1 Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, vol. vii. p. 246. 


28 CHAPTER I. 


1 2 3 4° 5 
Paumotuan rari ite neti ope neka 
Tahitian tahi rua, piti toru ha, maha rima, pae 
Hawaiian tahi lua tolu ha, tauna lima 
Nukuhivan _ tahi ua tou ha or fa ima 

6 7 8 9 10 
Paumotuan hene hito hawa nipa horihori 
Tahitian ono, fene hitu varu vau iva ahuru 
Hawaiian ono hitu valu iwa umi 
Nukuhivan ono hitu, fitu) vau iva onohuu 


When we look at such lists of words, what we 
have to do first is to note the phonetic changes which 
have taken place in one and the same numeral, as 
pronounced by different islanders. We thus arrive at 
phonetic rules, and these, in their turn, serve to remove 
the apparent dissimilarity in other words which at 
first seemed totally irreconcilable. Let those who 
are inclined to speak disparagingly of the strict ob- 
servance of phonetic rules in tracing the history of 
Aryan words, and who consider it mere pedantry to 
be restrained by Grimm’s Law from identifying such 
words as Latin cwra and care, Greek kalein and to 
call, Latin peto and to bid, Latin corvus and crow, look 
at the progress that has been made by African and 
Polynesian philologists in checking the wild spirit of 
etymology even when they have to deal with dialects 
never reduced as yet to a fixed standard by the in- 
fluence of a national literature, never written down at 
all, and never analysed before by grammatical science. 
The whole of the first volume of Dr. Bleek’s ‘Com- 
parative Grammar of the South African Languages ’ 
treats of Phonology, of the vowels and consonants 
peculiar to each dialect. and of the changes to which 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE, 29 


each letter is liable in its passage from one dialect 
into another (see page 82, seq.). And Mr. Hale, in 
the seventh volume of the ‘United States Exploring 
Expedition’ (p. 232), has not only given a table of the 
regular changes which words common to the nume- 
rous Polynesian languages undergo, but he has like- 
wise noted those permutations which take place 
sporadically only. On the strength of these phonetic 
laws once established, words which have hardly one 
single letter in common have been traced back with 
perfect certainty to one and the same source. 


Dialectic Regeneration. 


At the same time, mere phonetic change or decay 
will not account for the differences between the 
Polynesian dialects. We must admit another process 
also, that of dialectic regeneration. It will hardly be 
believed, for instance, that since the time of Cook 
five of the ten simple numerals in the language of 
Tahiti have been thrown off and replaced by new 
ones ? 

Two was rua; it is now piti. 
Four was ha; it is now maha. 
Five was rima; it is now pae. 
Six was ono; it is now fene. 
Eight was varw; it is now vau.' 

Such changes are very different from those which 
we observe in the Romanie dialects in their divergence 
from Latin, or in the ancient Aryan languages in their 
divergence from a common source. In the Romanic 
dialects, however violent the changes which made 


1 United States Exploring Expedition under the command of Charles 
Wilkes, ‘Ethnography and Philology,’ by H. Hale, vol. vil. p. 289, 


30 CHAPTER I. 


Portuguese words to differ from French, there always 
remain a few fibres by which they hang together. 
It might be difficult to recognise the French plier, to 
fold, to turn, in the Portuguese chegar, to arrive, yet 
we trace plier back to plicare, and chegar to the 
Spanish Ulegar, the old Spanish plegar, the Latin 
plicare} here used in the sense of plying or turning 
towards a place, arriving at a place. It is very 
different when we have to deal with languages which 
do not shrink from dropping some of their commonest 
words and replacing these by new words, generally 
taken from parallel dialects. Successive changes, 
taking place in the same language or in the same 
dialects, may be reduced to phonetic laws, but changes 
produced by a mixture of dialects are of a totally 
different character. 

Thus, when we have to deal with dialects of 
Chinese, everything that could possibly hold them 
together seems hopelessly gone. The language, 
for instance, now spoken in Cochin-China is a 
dialect of Chinese, at least as much as Norman- 
French was a dialect of French, though spoken by 
Saxons at a Norman court. There was a native 
language of Cochin-China, the Annamitic,’ which 
forms, as it were, the Saxon of that country on 
which the Chinese, like the Norman, was grafted. 
This engrafted Chinese, then, is a dialect of the 
Chinese, and it is most nearly related to the spoken 
dialect of Canton. Yet few Chinese scholars would 

1 Diez, Lexicon, s. v. llegar; Grammar, i. p. 379. 

2 On the native residuum in Cochin-Chinese, see Léon de Rosny, 


Tableau de la Cochinchine, p. 138. 
3 In the island of Hai-nan there is a distinct approach to the form 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 31 


recognise Chinese in the language of Cochin-China. 
It is, for instance, one of the most characteristic 
features of the literary Chinese, the dialect of Nankin, 
or the idiom of the Mandarins, that every syllable 
ends in a vowel, either pure or nasal.!_ In Cochin- 
Chinese, on the contrary, we find words ending in 
k, t, p. Thus ten is thap, at Canton chap, instead 
of the Chinese chi.2 No wonder that the early 
missionaries described the Annamitic as totally dis- 
tinct from Chinese. One of them says: ‘When I 
arrived in Cochin-China, and heard the natives speak, 
particularly the women, I thought I heard the twit- 
tering of birds, and I gave up all hope of ever 
learning it. All words are monosyllabic, and people 
distinguish their significations only by means of 
different accents in pronouncing them. The same 
syllable, for instance, dai, signifies twenty-three 
entirely different things, according to the difference 
of accent, so that people never speak without sing- 


that Chinese words assume in the language of Annam. LEdkins, Man- 
darin Grammar, p. 87. 

1 Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, pp. 53, 78, 96. 

2 Léon de Rosny, Tableaw de la Cochinchine, p. 295. He gives as 
illustrations :— 


Annamique. Cantonnais. Peking. 
dix thap chap chi 
pouvoir dak tak té 
sang houet hoeét hioué 
forét lam lam lin. 


He likewise mentions double consonants in the Chinese as spoken in 
Cochin-China, namely, bl, dy, ml, ty, tr; also f, r,s. As final conso- 
nants he gives ch, k, m, n, ng, p, t (p. 296). The Rev. J. Edkins, in 
his Mandarin Grammar, shows that in Chinese ancient and modern 
sounds differ, just as the dialects in modern times of two places distant 
from each other: pp. 268-283. 


O2 CHAPTER I. 


ing. ! This description, though it may be somewhat 
exaggerated, is correct in the main, there being six or 
eight musical accents or modulations in this as in 
other monosyllabic tongues, by which the different 
meanings of one and the same monosyllabic root are 
kept distinct. These accents form an element of lan- 
guage which we have lost, but which was most impor- 
tant during the primitive stages of human speech.? We 
must remember that the Chinese language commands 
no more than about 450 distinct sounds, but with 
them it expresses between 40,000 and 50,000 words or 
meanings.’ ‘These meanings are now kept distinct by 
means of composition, as in other languages by deri- 
vation, but in the radical stage words with more than 
twenty significations would have bewildered the 
hearer entirely, without some hints to indicate their 
actual intention. Such hints were given by different 
intonations. We have something left of this faculty 
in the tone of our sentences. We distinguish an in- 
terrogative from a positive sentence by the raising of 
our voice. (Gone? Gone.) We pronounce Yes very 
differently when we mean perhaps (Yes, this may be 
true), or of course (Yes, I know it), or really (Yes ? 
is it true?) or truly (Yes, I will). But in Chinese, in 
Annamitic (and lhkewise in Siamese and Burmese), 
these modulations have a much wider and more settled 
application. Thus in Annamitic, ba pronounced with 
the grave accent means a lady, an ancestor; pro- 
nounced with the sharp accent, it means the favourite 


' Léon de Rosny, I. ¢. p. 301. 
* See Beaulieu, Mémoire sur V Origine de la Musique, 1863. 
° The Science of Language, vol. i. p. 376. 


ee —_ 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 33 


of a prince; pronounced with the semigrave accent, 
it means what has been thrown away; pronounced 
with the grave circumflex, it means what is left of a 
fruit after it has been squeezed out; pronounced with 
no accent, it means three; pronounced with the as- 
cending or interrogative accent, it means a box on the 
ear. Thus— 

Ba, ba, ba, ba, 
is said to mean, if properly pronounced, ‘ Three 
ladies gave a box on the ear to the favourite of the 
prince. How much these accents must be exposed 
to fluctuations in different dialects is easy to per- 
ceive. Though they are fixed by grammatical rules, 
and though their neglect causes the most absurd 
mistakes, they were clearly in the beginning the 
mere expression of individual feeling, and therefore 
liable to muchegreater dialectic variation than gram- 
matical forms, properly so called. 

But let us take what we might call grammatical forms 
in Chinese, in order to see how differently they too 
fare in dialectic dispersion, as compared with the ter- 
minations of inflectional languages. Though the gram- 
matical organisation of Latin is well-nigh used up in 
French, we still see in the s of the plural a remnant 
of the Latin paradigm. We can trace the one back to 
the other. But in Chinese, where the plural is formed 
by the addition of some word meaning ‘multitude, 
heap, flock, class,’ what trace of original relationship 
remains when one dialect uses one, another another 
word? The plural in Cochin-Chinese is formed by 
placing fo before the substantive. This fo means 
many, or a certain number. It may exist in Chinese, 

ity D 


34 CHAPTER I, 


but it is certainly not used there to form the plural. 
Another word employed for forming plurals is nung, 
several, and this again is wanting in Chinese. It 
fortunately happens, however, that a few words ex- 
pressive of plurality have been preserved both in 
Chinese and Cochin-Chinese ; as, for instance, chowng, 
clearly the Chinese tchowng,! meaning conflux, vul- 
cus, all, and used as an exponent of the plural; and 
kak, which has been identified with the Chinese ko. 
The last identification may seem doubtful; and if we 
suppose that choung, too, had been given up in 
Cochin-Chinese as a term of plurality, how would 
the tests which we apply for discovering the original 
identity of the Aryan languages have helped us in 
determining the real and close relationship between 
Chinese and Cochin-Chinese ? 

The present indicative is formed in Cochin-Chinese 
by simply putting the personal pronoun before the 
root. Thus— 


Toy men, I love. 
Mai men, thou lovest. 
No men, he loves. 


The past tense is formed by the addition of da, 
which means ‘already.’ Thus— 


Toy da men, I loved. 
Mai da men, thou lovedst. 
No da men, he loved. 


The future is formed by the addition of che. 
Thus— 


Troy ché men, I shall love. ° 
Mai ché men, thou wilt love. 
No che men, he will love. 


1 Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, s. 152. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 35 


Now, have we any right, however convinced we 
may be of the close relationship between Chinese and 
Cochin-Chinese, to expect the same forms in the lan- 
guage of the Mandarins? Not at all. The pronoun 
of the first person in Cochin-Chinese is not what we 
mean by a pronoun, but means ‘servant. ‘I love’ is 
expressed in that civil language by ‘ servant loves.’ ! 


yn 


In Chinese the same polite phraseology is constantly 


observed,” but the words used are not the same, and 
do not include toy, servant. Instead of ngod, I, the 
Chinese would use kud gin, man of little virtue ; 
tcén, subject; 7w, blockhead.* Nothing can be more 


1 Léon de Rosny, l. ¢. 302. 2 Endlicher, § 206. 

> T owe the following note to the kindness of M. Stanislas Julien :— 

‘La maniére dont le mot ego s’exprime dans les différentes conditions 
est fort curieuse. 

‘Un homme ordinaire dira par humilité: yu, le stupide; ti, le frere 
cadet ; siao-tt, le petit; now-thsai, lesclave. 

‘L’empereur dit: siao-tseu, parvus filius; siao-eul, parvus infans. Un 
prince dit: kowa-jin, exigue virtutis homo; kou, Vorphelin; pou-kou, 
non bonus. 

‘Un magistrat supérieur (un préfet) dit: pen-fou, ma ville du premier 
ordre. Un magistrat inférieur (sous-préfet): hia-kowan, le magistrat 
infime. Pen-hiew, ma sous-préfecture ; pi-tchi, la basse charge. 

‘Un Tartare parlant & ’empereur : nou-thsai, Vesclave. 

‘Un religieux bouddhiste: pin-seng, le pauvre religieux ; siao-seny, 
le petit religieux. 

‘Une femme parlant & son mari: nou-now, esclave-esclave; nou-kia, 
esclave-maison ; tsien-tsie, la méprisable concubine. 

‘Un domestique: do, le domestique. 

‘Un fils parlant & son pere: pou-siao, pas semblable (c’est-a-dire, 
dégénéré). 

‘Un vieillard dit: lao-fon, le vieil homme; lao-han, le vieux Chinois ; 
lao-tchue (vieux-stupide) ; lao-hieow, vieux-pourri. 

‘Un religieux : tao-sse ; pin-tao, le pauvre tao ; siao-tao, le petit tao. 

‘Une religieuse bouddhiste: pin-ni, la pauvre religieuse; siao-nié, la 
petite religieuse. 

‘Une vieille femme: lao-chin, le vieux corps; /ao-niang, la vieille 
dame, etc,’ 


D 2 


36 CHAPTER TI. 


polite ; but we cannot expect that different nations 
should hit on exactly the same polite speeches, 
though they may agree in the common sense of 
orammar. 

The past tense is indicated in Chinese also by 
particles meaning ‘already’ or ‘ formerly, but we do 
not find among them the Annamitic da. The same 
applies to the future. The system is throughout the 
same, but the materials are different. Shall we say, 
therefore, that these languages cannot be proved to be 
related, because they do not display the same criteria 
of relationship as French and English, Latin and 
Greek, Celtic and Sanskrit ? 

I tried on a former occasion! to explain some of the 
causes which in nomadic dialects produce a much 
more rapid shedding of words than in literary lan- 
guages, and I have since received ample evidence to 
confirm the views which I then expressed. I was not 
aware at that time how clearly Schelling, in his 
Kinlettung in die Philosophie der Mythologie (vol. i. 
p. 114), had perceived the necessity of change and 
dialectic variety in all nomadic languages. Speaking 
of the languages of Southern America, as described by 
Azara in his voyages (vol. ii.), he says :— 

Among that population the Guarani is the only language 
which is understood over a large area, and even this point 
requires more careful examination. Apart from this, as Azara 
remarks (and he has not only passed through these countries, 
but lived in them for years), the language changes from clan 
to clan, from cottage to cottage, so that often the members of 


one and the same family only understand each other. Nay, 
the very power of speech seems sometimes to become extinct. 


' Letter to Chevalier Bunsen, on the Turanian Languages. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 37 


Their voice is never strong or sonorous; they only speak low, 
never loud, even when they are being killed. They hardly 
move their lips while speaking, and there is no expression in 
their face to invite attention. They evidently dislike speaking, 
and if they see a friend a hundred steps off, they rather run 
after him than call him. Language, therefore, here hovers on 
the very edge, and one step more would entirely put an end 
to it. 

My excellent friend, Bishop Patteson of Melanesia, 
of whom it is difficult to say whether we should admire 
him most as a missionary, or as a scholar, or as a 
bold mariner,’ met in every small island with a new 
language, which none but a scholar could trace back 
to the Melanesian type. ‘What an indication, he 
writes, ‘of the jealousy and suspicion of their lives, 
the extraordinary multiplicity of these languages 
affords! In each generation, for aught I know, they 
diverge more and more; provincialisms and local 
words, &c., perpetually introduce new causes for 
perplexity.’ 

The northern peninsula of Celebes, of which the 
chief town is Menado, is inhabited by a race quite 
distinct from the other people of the island. They 
are Malays, but have something of the Tatar and 
something of the Kuropean in their physiognomy. 
They agree best with some of the inhabitants of the 
Philippines; and Mr. Wallace, a most accurate ob- 
server, supposes that they have come from those 
islands originally by way of the Siaou and Sanguir 
islands, which are inhabited by an allied race. Their 
languages show this affinity, differing very much 
from all those of the rest of Celebes. A proof, how- 


1 He was murdered in 1871, a true hero and martyr. 


38 CHAPTER TI. 


ever, of the antiquity of this immigration, and of 
the low state of civilisation in which they must have 
existed for long periods, is to be seen in the variety 
of their languages. In a district about one hundred 
iniles long by thirty miles wide, not less than ten 
distinct languages are spoken. Some of them are 
confined to single villages, others to groups of three 
or four; and though of course they have a certain 
family resemblance, they are yet so distinct as to be 
mutually unintelligible.! 


Te pi. 


There are many causes at work to produce dialectic 
change. In addition to those which I have explained 
already, I shall mention but one more which has 
acted very powerfully on the Polynesian languages. 
It may seem at first sight very insignificant, but as 
one of the multifarious influences which are at work 
in nomadic dialects, constantly changing their aspect 
and multiplying their number, it ought not to be over- 
looked. It will serve at all events to convince even 
the most incredulous, how little we know of all the 
secret springs of language if we confine our researches 
to a comparison of the classical tongues of India, 
Greece, Italy, and Germany. 

The Tahitians,? besides their metaphorical ex- 
pressions, have another and a more singular mode of 
displaying their reverence towards their king, by a 
custom which they term Je pi. They cease to em- 


_* A.R, Wallace, ‘Man in the Malay Archipelago, Transactions of 
the Ethnological Society, iii. p. 206. 
* Hale, l. c. p. 288. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. og 


ploy, in the common language, those words which 
form a part or the whole of the sovereign’s name, or 
that of one of his near relatives, and invent new 
terms to supply their place. As all names in Poly- 
nesian are significant, and as a chief usually has 
several, it will be seen that this custom must produce 
a very considerable change in the language. It is true 
that this change is only temporary, as at the death 
of the king or chief the new word is dropt, and 
the original term resumed. But it is hardly to be 
supposed that after one or two generations the old 
words should still be remembered and be reinstated. 
The literary activity of the missionaries also will in 
future serve to check the influence of this ancient 
national custom, because words, if once incorporated 
in the translation of the Bible, in grammars and 
dictionaries, will acquire a strong persistence and defy 
the ceremonial loyalty of the natives. Vancouver 
observes (Voyage, vol. i. p. 185) that at the accession 
of Otu, which took place between the visit of Cook 
and his own, no less than forty or fifty of the most 
common words, which occur in conversation, had 
been entirely changed. It is not necessary that all 
the simple words which go to make up a compound 
name should be changed. The alteration of one is 
esteemed sufficient. Thus in Po-mare, signifying 
‘the night (po) of coughing (mare), only the first 
word, po, has been dropped, mz being used in its 
place. So in Ai-mata (eye-eater), the name of 
another queen, the az (eat) has been altered to amu, 
and the mata (eye) retained. In Te-arii-na-vaha-roa 
(the chief with the large mouth), roa alone has been 


40 CHAPTER I. 


changed to macro. It is the same as if, with the 
accession of Queen Victoria, either the word victory 
had been tabooed altogether, or only part of it, for 
instance to7v?, so as to make it high treason to speak 
during her reign of Tories, this word being always 
supplied by another; such, for instance, as Liberal- 
Conservative. The object was clearly to guard 
against the name of the sovereign being ever used, 
even by accident, in ordinary conversation, and this 
object was equally well attained by tabooing even one 
portion of his name only. 


But this alteration (as Mr. Hale continues) affects not 
only the words themselves, but syllables of similar sound in 
other words. Thus the name of one of the kings being Tu, 
not only was this word, which means ‘to stand,’ changed to 
tia, but in the word fetu, star, the last syllable, though having 
no connection except in sound, with the word tu, underwent 
the same alteration—star being now fetia; tui, to strike, 
became tiai; and tu pa pau, a corpse, tia pa pau. So ha, 
four, having been changed to maha, the word aha, split, has been 
altered to amaha, and murihd, the name of a month, to murimaha. 
When the word ai was changed to amu, maraai, the name of 
a certain wind (in Rarotongan, maranai), became maraamu., 

The mode of alteration, or the manner of forming new 
terms, seems to be arbitrary. In many cases, the substitutes 
are made by changing or dropping some letter or letters of 
the original word, as hopoi for hapai, to carry in the arms; 
ene for hono, to mend; au for tau, fit; hio for tio, to look ; 
ea for ara, path; vau for varu, eight; vea for vera, not, &e. 
In other cases, the word substituted is one which had before 
a meaning nearly related to that of the term disused—as tia, 
straight, upright, is used instead of tu, to stand; pae, part, 
division, instead of rima, five; piti, together, has replaced rua, 
two, &c. In some cases, the meaning or origin of the new 
word is unknown, and it may be a mere invention—as ofai 
for ohatu, stone ; pape, for vai, water; pohe for mate, dead, 


at i 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 41 


&c. Some have been adopted from the neighbouring Pau- 
motuan, as rui, night, from ruko, dark; fene, six, from hene ; 
avae, moon, from kawake. 

It is evident that but for the rule by which the old terms are 
revived on the death of the person in whose name they entered, 
the language might, in a few centuries, have been completely 
changed, not, indeed, in its grammar, but in its vocabulary. 

When such liberties could be taken with language, 
we need not be surprised that one of the kings of the | 
Sandwich Islands conceived the idea of inventing an 
entirely new language. About the year 1800, as 
Chamisso tells us in his Travels,) King Tameia- 
meia (only another rendering of Kamehameha) in- 
vented a new language in honour of the birth of a 
son. The new words were not related to any roots of 
the current language, nor derived from them. Even 
the particles which take the place of grammatical 
forms and bind a sentence together, were similarly 
changed. The story goes that some of the influential 
chiefs who disapproved of this innovation, poisoned 
the child that had been the innocent cause of it, and 
that at his death the changes were suppressed which 
had been introduced at his birth. The old language 
returned, the new one was forgotten, not so much 
however that Marini, Chamisso’s authority in this 
matter, could not mention a few instances of novel 
words which survived, such as anna, man, for the old 
kanaka; karavu, woman, for the old waheini; amio, 
to go, for the old kokine; ja papa, dog, for the old 
irzo or lio.? 

1 Chamisso, Werke, ii. 77. 

2 Something of the same kind is mentioned by Dobrizhoffer with 


regard to the language of the Abipones; History of the Abipones, part 
ii, chap. 17. 


42 CHAPTER f. 


Nor is this custom of Te pi, a kind of linguistic 
Tabu, confined to the Malayo-Polynesian dialects. A 
similar tendency exists in Chinese. Schlegel, in his 
Sinico-Aryaca,! p. 4, makes the following statement : 


En Chinois nous retrouvons le méme usage pour la langue 
Lay a Ale Say P 
écrite. Le caractere Ry tchou, p.e. désignant une espéce de 
toile grossiére, est en méme temps le nom particulier de 


lEmpereur Hien-fung. Depuis, on ne peut plus se servir de ce 
caractere pour désigner cette espece d’étoffe, mais on doit la 


at : Yi 
désigner par le caractére tronqué qe par respect pour le nom 
sacré du Souverain. 

Le caractére F{5 pang, un état, fut éliminé de la littérature 


chinoise pendant tout le temps que regnait la maison du fonda- 
teur de la dynastie de Han, puisque le nom de ce fondateur était 
All Fi Liu-pang. I fut remplacé par le caractere [zt] kwoh, 
qui signifiait primitivement, une principauté; mais, qui, par 
l'élimination temporaire du mot pang, a recu une signification 
plus large, tandis que le mot pang est descendu-de son rang 
supérieur et a pris l’acceptation qu’avait primitivement le 
caractere kwoh. (Notes and Queries on China and Japan, vol. 
ill. pp. 179-181.) 


A similar custom, according to Aymonier, prevails 
in Cambodja. ‘Si le nom du roi, he writes in his 
Dictionnaire Franeais-Cambodgien ( 1874), p. 4, ‘est 
emprunté & un mot du langage usuel, chose trés- 
commune au Cambodge, ce mot est souvent chargé. 
Ainsi depuis Ang Duong, le mot duong, qui désignait 
une petite piéce de monnaie, est remplacé par le mot 
dom, 


" Verhandlingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, Deel. xxxvi, 
Batavia, 1872. This subject has been very fully treated by the Rev. 


Hilderic Friend, ‘Euphemism and Tabu in China,’ Folk-lore Record, 
vol. iv. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 43 


Ukuhlonipa. 


It might, no doubt, be said that a custom such as 
Te pi is a mere accident, a fancy peculiar to a fanciful 
race, but far too unimportant to claim any considera- 
tion from the philosophical student of language. I 
confess that at first it appeared to myself in the same 
light, but my attention was lately drawn to the fact, 
that the same peculiarity, or at least something very 
like it, exists in the Kafir languages. ‘The Kafir 
women, as we are told by the Rev. J. W. Appleyard, 
in his excellent work on the Kafir language,' ‘ have 
many words peculiar to themselves. This arises from 
a national custom, called Ukuhlonipa, which forbids 
their pronouncing any word which may happen to 
contain a sound similar to one in the names of their 
nearest male relations. It is perfectly true that the 
words substituted are at first no more than family 
idioms, that they would be confined to the gossip of 
women, and not enter into the conversation of men. 
But the influence of women on the language of each 


1 The Kafir Language, comprising a sketch of its history ; which in- 
cludes a general classification of South African dialects, ethnographical 
and geographical ; remarks upon its nature; anda grammar. By the 
Rey. J. W. Appleyard, Wesleyan missionary in British Kaffraria, King 
William’s Town : printed for the Wesleyan Missionary Society; sold by 
Godlonton and White, Graham’s Town, Cape of Good Hope, and by 
John Mason, 66 Paternoster Row, London. 1850. Appleyard’s remarks 
on Ukuhlonipa were pointed out to me by the Rev. F, W. Farrar, the 
author of an excellent work on the Origin of Language. 

See also Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 147, and the Rev. J. 
L. Dohne, Zulu-Kafir Dictionary, Cape Town, 1857, s.v. hlonipa, to be 
bashful, to keep at a distance through timidity, to shun approach, to 
avoid mentioning one’s name, to be respectful. On Ukuhlonipa in 
Tasmania, see Bonwick, Daily Life in Tasmania, p. 146, 


4.4, CHAPTER I. 


generation is much greater than that of men. We 
very properly call our language in Germany our 
mother-tongue, Unsere Muttersprache, for it is from 
our mothers that we learn it, with all its peculiarities, 
faults, idioms, accents. Cicero, in his ‘Brutus’ (c. 
58), said:—‘It makes a great difference whom we 
hear at home every day, and with whom we speak as 
boys, and how our fathers, our tutors, and our 
mothers speak. We read the letters of Cornelia, the 
mother of the Gracchi, and it is clear from them that 
her sons were brought up not in the lap, but, so to 
say, in the very breath and speech of their mother.’ 
And again (Rhet. iii. 12), when speaking of his — 
mother-in-law, Crassus said, ‘When I hear Lelia 
(for women keep old fashions more readily, because, 
as they do not hear the conversation of many people, 
they will always retain what they learned at first) ; 
but. when I hear her, it is as if I were listening to 
Plautus and Neevius.’ | 
But this is not all. Dante ascribed the first at- 
tempts at using the vulgar tongue in Italy for literary 
compositions to the silent influence of ladies who did 
not understand the Latin language. Now this vulgar 
Italian, before it became the literary language of 
Italy, held very much the same position there as the 
so-called Prakrit dialects in India ; and these Prakrit 
dialects first assumed a literary position in the San- 
skrit plays where female characters, both high and 
low, are introduced as speaking Prakrit, instead of 
the Sanskrit employed by kings, noblemen, and 
priests. Here, then, we see the language of women, 
or, if not of women exclusively, at all events of women 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 45 


and domestic servants, gradually entering into the 
literary idiom, and in later times even supplanting it 
altogether; for it is from the Prakrit, and not from 
the literary Sanskrit, that the modern vernaculars 
of India branched off in course of time. Nor is the 
simultaneous existence of two such representatives of 
one and the same language as Sanskrit and Prakrit 
confined to India. On the contrary, it has been re- 
marked that several languages divide themselves from 
the first into two great branches; one showing a 
more manly, the other a more feminine character ; 
one richer in consonants, the other richer in vowels ; 
one more tenacious of the original grammatical ter- 
minations, the other more inclined to slur over these 
terminations, and to simplify grammar by the use of 
circumlocutions. Thus we have Greek in its two 
dialects, the AMolic and the Ionic, with their sub- 
divisions, the Doric and Attic. In German we find 
the High and the Low German; in Celtic, the Goidhelic 
and Cymric, as in India the Sanskrit and Prakrit ; 
and it is by no means an unlikely or merely fanciful 
explanation, that, as Grimm suggested in the case of 
High and Low German, so likewise in the other Aryan 
languages, the stern and strict dialects, the Sanskrit, 
the Molic, the Goidhelic, represent the idiom of the 
fathers and brothers, used at public assemblies ; while 
the soft and simpler dialects, the Prakrit, the Ionic, 
and the Cymric, sprang originally from the domestic 
idiom of mothers, sisters, and servants at home. 

But whether the influence of the language of women 
be admitted on this large scale or not, certain 1t 1s, 
that through a thousand smaller channels their idioms 


46 | CHAPTER I. 


everywhere find admission into the domestic conver- 
sation of the whole family, and into the public speeches 
of their assemblies. The greater the ascendancy of 
the female element in society, the greater the influence 
of their language on the language of a family or a 
clan, a village, or a town. The cases, however, that 
are mentioned of women speaking a totally different 
language from the men, cannot be used in confirmation 
of this view. The Caribe women, for instance, in the 
Antille Islands,’ spoke a language different from that 
of their husbands, because the Caribes had killed the 
whole male population of the Arawakes and married 
their women ; and something similar seems to have 
taken place among some of the tribes of Greenland. 
Yet even these isolated cases show how, among savage 
races, In a primitive state of society, language may be 
influenced by what we should call purely accidental 
causes, and more particularly wherever the system of 
exogamous marriage is prevalent. 

But to return to the Kafir language, we find in it 
clear traces that what may have been originally a mere 
feminine peculiarity—the result, if you like, of the 
bashfulness of the Kafir ladies—extended its influence. 
For, in the same way as the women eschew words 
which contain a sound similar to the names of their 
nearest male relatives, the men also of certain Kafir 
tribes feel a prejudice against employing a word that 
is similar in sound to the name of one of their former 
chiefs. Thus, the Amambalu do not use ilanga, the 
general word for swn, because their first chief’s name 
was Ulanga, but employ dsota instead. For a similar 


* Hervas, Catalogo, i. p. 212. * Ibid. i. p. 369. 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 47 


reason, the Amagqunukwebi substitute vmmela for 
isitshetshe, the general term for knife." 

Here, then, we may perceive two things: first, the 
influence which a mere whim, if it once becomes 
stereotyped, may exercise on the whole character of 
a language, for we must remember that as every 
woman had her own male relations, and every tribe 
its own ancestors, a large number of words must — 
constantly have been tabooed and supplanted in these 
African and Polynesian dialects ; secondly, the cu- 
rious coincidence that two great branches of speech, 
the Kafir and the Polynesian, should share in common 
what at first sight would seem a merely accidental 
idiosyncrasy, a thing that might have been thought 
of once, but never again. It is perfectly true that 
such principles as the Te pi and the Ukuhlonipa could 
never become powerful agents in the literary languages 
of civilised nations, and that we must not look for 
traces of their influence either in Sanskrit, Greek, or 
Latin, as known tous.* But it is for that very reason 
that the study of what I call Nomad languages, as 
distinguished from State languages, becomes so in- 
structive. We see in them what we can no longer 
expect to see even in the most ancient Sanskrit or 
Hebrew. We watch the childhood of language with 
all its childish freaks, and we learn at least this one 
lesson, that there often is more in real language than 
is dreamt of in our philosophy. 

One more testimony in support of these views. 


' Appleyard, J. c. p. 70. 
2 See Lorédan Larchey, Les Excentricités du Langage: Paris, 


1865. 


48 : CHAPTER T. 


Mr. H. W. Bates, in his interesting work, The Natural- 
ist on the Amazons, writes :— 


But language is not a sure guide in the filiation of Bra- 
zilian tribes, seven or eight languages being sometimes spoken 
on the same river within a distance of 200 or 300 miles, 
There are certain peculiarities in Indian habits which lead to 
a quick corruption of language and segregation of dialects. 
When Indians, men or women, are conversing amongst them- 
selves, they seem to take pleasure in inventing new modes of 
pronunciation, or in distorting words. It is amusing to notice 
how the whole party will laugh when the wit of the circle 
perpetrates a new slang term, and these new words are very 
often retained. I have noticed this during long voyages made 
with Indian crews. When such alterations occur amongst a 
family or horde, which often live many years without com- 
munication with the rest of their tribe, the local corruption 
of language becomes perpetuated. Single hordes belonging 
to the same tribe, and inhabiting the banks of the same river, 
thus become, in the course of many years’ isolation, unin- 
telligible to other hordes, as happens with the Collinas on the 
Jurtia. I think it, therefore, very probable that the dispo- 
sition to invent new words and new modes of pronunciation, 
added to the small population and habits of isolation of hordes 
and tribes, are the causes of the wonderful diversity of lan- 
guages in South America.—(Vol, i. pp. 329-30.) 


As I mostly borrow my materials for the illustra- 
tion of the general principles of the Science of 
Language from Greek and Latin, with its Romance 


offshoots ; from English, with its Continental kith 


and kin, and from the much-abused, though indispen- 
sable, Sanskrit, I thought it all the more necessary to 
guard against the misapprehension that the study of 
Sanskrit and its cognate dialects could supply us with 
all that is necessary for our purpose. It can do so as 
little as an exploration of the tertiary epoch could tell 


ae 


NEW MATERIALS FOR THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 49 


us all about the stratification of the earth. But, 
nevertheless, it can tell us a great deal. By display- 
ing the minute laws that regulate the changes of each 
consonant, each vowel, each accent, it disciplines the 
student, and teaches him respect for every jot and 
tittle in any, even the most barbarous, dialect he may 
hereafter have to analyse. By helping us to an under-— 
standing of that language in which we think, and of 
others most near and dear to us, it makes us perceive 
the great importance which the Science of Language 
has for the Science of Thought. Nay, it shows that 
the two are inseparable, and that without a proper 
analysis of human language we shall never arrive at 
a true knowledge of the human mind. I quote from 
Leibniz: ‘I believe truly, he says, ‘that languages 
are the best mirror of the human mind, and that an 
exact analysis of the signification of words would make 
us better acquainted than anything else with the 
operations of the understanding.’ 


Lie E 


CHAPTER II. 
LANGUAGE AND REASON. 


ANGUAGE has two aspects under which it 

presents itself to the eye of the student. It has 

a body and a soul which, though they cannot be 

separated, can be distinguished and be subjected 
separately to scientific treatment. 

I shall treat therefore first, of the body or the out- 
side of language, its letters, syllables, and words, 
describing their origin, their formation, and the laws 
which determine their growth and decay. Here we 
shall have to deal with some of the most important 
principles of etymology. 

After that, I-shall try to investigate what may be 
called the soul or the inside of language, examining 
the first concepts that claimed utterance, their com- 
binations, their ramifications, their growth, their 
decay, and often their resuscitation. We shall have 
to deal then with some of the fundamental principles 
of mythology, both ancient and modern, and try to 
determine the sway, if any, which the old language 
exercises on the ever new language, or, as it is 
generally expressed, which language, as such, exercises 
over thought. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 51 


I am fully aware that this division is liable 
to some grave objections. To treat of sound as in- 
dependent of meaning, of thought as independent of 
words, seem to defy one of the best established prin- 
ciples of the science of language. Where do we ever 
meet in reality, [mean in the world such as it is, with 
articulate sounds—sounds like those that form the 
body of language, existing by themselves, and inde- 
pendent of language? No human being utters arti- 
culate sounds without an object, a purpose, a mean- 
ing! The endless configurations of sound which are: 
collected in our dictionaries would have no existence 
at all, they would be the mere ghost of a language, 
unless they stood there as the embodiment of thought, 
as the realisation of ideas. Even the interjections 
which we use, the cries and screams which are the 
precursors, or, according to others, the elements, of 
articulate speech, never exist without meaning. Arti- 
culate sound is always an utterance, a bringing out of 
something that is within, a manifestation or revela- 
tion of something that wants to manifest and to reveal 
itself. It would be different if language had been in- 
vented by agreement; if certain wise kings, priests, 
and philosophers had put their heads together and 
decreed that certain conceptions should be labelled 
and ticketed with certain sounds. In that case we 
might speak of the sound as the outside, of the ideas 
as the inside of language. 


* Ait. Br, II.: ‘Manasa va ishité vag vadati, yam hy anya- 
mand vakam vadaty asurya vai si vag adevagushta, ‘The 


voice speaks as impelled by the mind; if one utters speech with a 
different mind or meaning, that is demoniacal speech, not loved by the 
gods.’ 


EK 2 


52 CHAPTER II. 


Artificial Language. 


Why it is impossible to conceive of living human 
language as having originated in a conventional agree- 
ment, I have endeavoured to explain before. We 
should want language in order to arrive at a con- 
ventional agreement on language. But I should by 
no means wish to be understood as denying the 
possibility of framing some language in this artificial 
manner, after men have once learnt to speak and to 
reason. It is the fashion to laugh at the idea of an 
artificial, still more of a universal language. But if 
this problem were really so absurd, a man like Leibniz 
would hardly have taken so deep an interest in its 
solution. That such a language should ever come into 
practical use, or that the whole earth should in that 
manner ever be of one language and one speech again, 
is hard to conceive. But that the problem itself admits 


of a solution, and of a very perfect solution, cannot 
be doubted. 


The Universal Language of Leibniz. 


As there prevails much misconception on this sub- 
ject; I shall give a short account of what has been 
achieved in framing a truly philosophical and there- 
fore universal language. 

Leibniz, in a letter to Remond de Montmort, written 
two years before his death, expressed himself with the 
greatest confidence on the value of what he calls his 
Spécieuse générale, and we can hardly doubt that he 
had then acquired a perfectly clear insight into his 
ideal of a universal language.1 ‘If he succeeded, 

* Guhrauer, G. W. Freiherr von Leibnitz, 1846, vol. i. p. 328, 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 53 


he writes, ‘in stirring up distinguished men to culti- 
vate the calculus with infinitesimals, it was because 
he could give palpable proofs of its use; but he had 
spoken to the Marquis de L’Hopital and others, of 
his Spécieuse générale, without gaining from them 
more attention than if he had been telling them of a 
dream. He ought to be able, he adds, to support his 
theory by some palpable use; but for that purpose he 
would have to carry out a part of his Characteristics— 
no easy matter, particularly circumstanced as he then 
was, deprived of the conversation of men who would 
encourage and help him in this work.’ 

A few months before this letter, Leibniz spoke 
with perfect assurance of his favourite theory. He 
admitted the difficulty of inventing and arranging 
this philosophical language; but he maintained that, 
if once carried out, it could be acquired by others 
without a dictionary, and with comparative ease. He 
should be able to carry it out, he said, if he were 
younger and less occupied, or if young men of talent 
were by hisside. A few eminent men might complete 
the work in five years, and within two years they 
might bring out the systems of ethics and meta- 
physics in the form of an incontrovertible calculus. 


The Philosophical Language of Bishop Wilkins. 


Leibniz died before he could lay before the world 
the outlines of his philosophical language, and many 
even among his admirers have expressed their doubts 
whether he ever had a clear conception of the nature 
of such a language. It seems hardly compatible, 
however, with the character of Leibniz to suppose 


54, CHAPTER II. 


that he should have spoken so confidently, that he 
should actually have placed this Spécieuse générale 
on a level with his differential calculus, if it had been 
a mere dream. It seems more likely that Leibniz 
was acquainted with a work which, in the second half 
of the seventeenth century, attracted much attention 
in England, ‘The Essay towards a Real Character 
and a Philosophical Language,! by Bishop Wilkins 
(London, 1668), and that he perceived at once that 
the scheme there traced out was capable of much 
greater perfection. This work had been published by 
the Royal Society, and the author’s name was so well 
known as one of its founders, that it could hardly 
have escaped the notice of the Hanoverian philoso- 
pher, who was in such frequent correspondence with 
members of that society.? 

Now, though it has been the fashion to sneer at 
Bishop Wilkins and his Universal Language, his work 
seems to me, as far as I can judge, to offer the best 
solution that has yet been offered of a problem which, 
if of no practical importance, is of great interest from 
a purely scientific point of view; and though it is 
impossible to give an intelligible account of the 
Bishop’s scheme without entering into particulars 
which cannot be but tedious, it will help us, I believe, 


* The work of Bishop Wilkins is analysed and criticised by Lord 
Monboddo, in the second volume of his Origin and Progress of Language, 
Kdinburgh, 1774. 

* This supposition has been confirmed by a passage in which Leibniz 
actually quotes Bishop Wilkins. See Benfey, Geschichte der Sprach- 
wissenschaft, p. 249; Trendelenburg, Uber Leibnizens Entwurf einer 
allgemeinen Characteristik, Berlin, 1856; Monatsberichte der Berliner 
Akademie, 1860, p. 375; and a note in the French translation of my 
Lectures by Harris and Perrot, p. 57. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON, 55 


towards a better understanding of real language, if we 
can acquire a clear idea of what an artificial language 
would be, and how it would differ from living speech. 

The primary object of the Bishop was not to invent 
a new spoken language, though he arrives at that in 
the end, but to contrive a system of writing or repre- 
senting our thoughts that should be universally in- 
telligible. We have, for instance, our numerical 
figures, which are understood by people speaking 
different languages, and which, though differently 
pronounced in different parts of the world, convey 
everywhere the same idea. We have besides such 
signs as + plus, — minus, x to be multiplied, + to 
be divided, = equal, < greater, > smaller, © sun, 
© moon, @ earth, ¥ Jupiter, ) Saturn, ¢ Mars, 

¢ Venus, &c., which are intelligible to mathema- 
ticians and astronomers all over the world. 

Now if to every thing and notion,—I quote from Bishop 
Wilkins (p. 21)—there were assigned a distinct mark, to- 
gether with some provision to express grammatical derivations 
and inflexions, this might suffice as to one great end of a real 
character, namely, the expression of our conceptions by marks, 
which shall signify things, and not words. And so, likewise, 
if several distinct words (sounds) were assigned to the names 
of such things, with certain invariable rules for all such 
grammatical derivations and inflexions, and such only as are 
natural and necessary, this would make a much more easy and 
convenient language than is yet in being. 

This suggestion, which, as we shall see, is not the 
one which Bishop Wilkins carried out, has lately been 
taken up by Don Sinibaldo de Mas, in his Idéographie.’ 

1 Idéographie. Mémoire sur la possibilité et la facilité de former 


une écriture générale au moyen de laquelle tous les peuples puissent 
s’entendre mutuellement sans que les uns connaissent la langue des 


56 CHAPTER II. 


He gives a list of 2,600 figures, all formed after the 
pattern of musical notes, and he assigns to each a 
certain meaning. According to the interval in which 
the head of such a note is placed, the same sign is to 
be taken as a noun, an adjective, a verb, or an ad- 
verb. Thus the same sign might be used to. express 
love, to love, loving, and lovingly, by simply moving 
its head on the lines and spaces from f to e, d, and 
c. Another system of signs is then added to express 
| gender, number, case, person, tense, mood, and other 
grammatical categories, and a system of hieroglyphics 
is thus formed, by which the author succeeds in 
rendering the first 150 verses of the Aneid. It is 
perfectly true, as the author remarks, that the diffi- 
culty of learning his 2,000 signs is nothing in com- 
parison with learning several languages ; it is perfectly 
true, also, that nothing can exceed the simplicity of 
his grammatical notation, which excludes by its very 
nature everything that is anomalous. The whole 
grammatical framework consists of thirty-nine signs, 
whereas, as Don Sinibaldo remarks, we have in 
French 310 different terminations for the simple 
tenses of the ten regular conjugations, 1,755 for the 
thirty-nine irregular conjugations, and 200 for the 
auxiliary verbs, a sum total of 2,265 terminations, 
which must be learnt by heart.) It ig perfectly true, 
again, that few persons would ever use more than 
4,000 words, and that by having the same sign used 
throughout as noun, verb, adjective, and adverb, this 


autres; écrit par Don Sinibaldo de Mas, Envoyé extraordinaire et 
Ministre plénipotentiaire de S. M. ©, en Chine. Paris: B. Duprat, 
1863. 1 Page 99, 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 57 


number might still be considerably reduced. There is, 
however, this fundamental difficulty, that the assign- 
ment of a certain sign to a certain idea is purely 
arbitrary in this system, a difficulty which, as we 
shall now proceed to show, Bishop Wilkins endea- 
voured to overcome in a very ingenious and truly 
philosophical way. 


If these marks or notes (he writes) could be so contrived 
as to have such a dependence upon, and relation to, one 
another, as might be suitable to the nature of the things and 
notions which they represented ; and so, likewise, if the names 
of things could be so ordered as to contain such a kind of 
affinity or opposition in their letters and sounds, as might be 
some way answerable to the nature of the things which they 
signified; this would yet be a farther advantage superadded, 
by which, besides the best way of helping the memory by 
natural method, the understanding likewise would be highly 
improved; and we should, by learning the character and the 
names of things, be instructed likewise in their natures, the 
knowledge of both of which ought to be conjoined." 


The Bishop, then, undertakes neither more nor less 
than a classification of all that is or can be known, 
and he makes this dictionary of notions the basis of 
a corresponding dictionary of signs, both written and 
spoken. All this is done with great circumspection, 
and if we consider that it was undertaken nearly two 
hundred years ago, and carried out by one man single- 
handed, we shall be inclined to judge leniently of 
what may now seem to us antiquated and imperfect 
in his catalogue raisonné of human knowledge. A 
careful consideration of his work will show us why 
this language, which was meant to be permanent, 


1 Page 21. 


58 CHAPTER II. 


unchangeable, and universal, would, on the contrary, 
by its very nature, be constantly shifting. As our 
knowledge advances, the classification of our notions 
is constantly remodelled ; nay, in a certain sense, all 
advancement of learning may be called a corrected 
classification of our notions. If a plant, classified ac- 
cording to the system of Linnzeus, or according to that 
of Bishop Wilkins, has its own peculiar place in their 
synopsis of knowledge, and its own peculiar sign in 
their summary of philosophical language, every change 
in the classification of plants would necessitate a 
change in the philosophical nomenclature. The whale, 
for instance, is classified by Bishop Wilkins as a fish, 
falling under the division of viviparous and oblong. 
Fishes, in general, are classed first as swbstwnces, then 
as animate, as sensitive, and lastly as sanguineous, 
and the sign attached to the whale, by Bishop 
Wilkins, expresses every one of those differences 
which mark its place in his system of knowledge. 
As soon, therefore, as we treat the whale no longer 
as a fish, but as a mammal, its place is completely 
shifted, and its sign or name, if retained, would mis- 
lead us quite as much as the names of rainbow, 
thunderbolt, sunset, and others, expressive of ancient 
ideas which we know to be erroneous. This would 
happen even in strictly scientific subjects. 

Chemistry, for instance, adopted acid as the tech- 
nical name of a class of bodies of which those first 
recognised in science were distinguished by sourness 
of taste. But as chemical knowledge advanced, it 
was discovered that there were compounds precisely 
analogous in essential character, which were not sour, 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 59 


and consequently acidity was but an accidental quality 
of some of these bodies, not a necessary or universal 
character of all. It was thought too late to change 
the name, and accordingly in all European languages 
the term acid, or its etymological equivalent, is now 
applied to rock-crystal, quartz, and flint. 

In like manner, from a similar misapplication of 
salt, in scientific use, chemists class the substance of — 
which junk-bottles, French mirrors, windows, and 
opera glasses are made, among the salts, while ana- 
lysts have declared that the essential character, not 
only of other so-called salts, but of common kitchen 
salt, the salt of salts, has been mistaken; that salt is 
not salt, and, accordingly, have excluded that sub- 
stance from the class of bodies upon which, as their 
truest representative, it had bestowed its name. 

The Bishop begins by dividing all things which 
may be the subjects of language into six classes or 
genera, which he again subdivides by their several 
differences. These six classes comprise :— 


A. TRANSCENDENTAL NOTIONS. 
B. SUBSTANCES. 

C. QUANTITIES. 

D. QUALITIES. 

Ki. ACTIONS. 

I’. RELATIONS. 

In B to F we easily recognise the principal pre- 
dicaments or categories of logic, the pigeon-holes in 
which the ancient philosophers thought they could 
stow away all the ideas that ever entered the human 


' Marsh, History of the English Language, p. 211; Liebig, Che- 
mische Briefe, 4th edit. i. p. 96. 


60 CHAPTER II. 


mind. Under A we meet with a number of more 
abstract conceptions, such as kind, cause, condition, &e. 

By subdividing these six classes, the Bishop arrives 
in the end at forty classes, which, according to him, 
comprehend everything that can be known or ima- 
gined, and therefore everything that can possibly 
claim expression in a language, whether natural or 
artificial. To begin with the beginning, we find that 
his transcendental notions refer either to things or to 
words. Referring to things, we have 


I. Transcenpentats Generat, such as the notions of kind, cause, 
differences, end, means, mode. Here, under kind, we should 
find such notions as being, thing, notion, name, substance, 
accident, &c. Under notions of cause we meet with author, 
tool, aim, stuff, &e. 


II. Transcenpenrat or Mrxep Retation, such as the notions of 
general quantity, continued quantity, discontinued quantity, quality, 
whole and part. Under general quantity the notions of greatness 
and littleness, excess and defect ; under continued quantity those 
of length, breadth, depth, &c., would find their places. 


IIT. Transcenpewtat Retations or Actions, such as the notions of 
simple actions (putting, taking), comparate action (joining, re- 
peating, &c.), business (preparing, designing, beginning), com- 
merce (delivering, paying, reckoning), event (gaining, keeping, 
refreshing), motion (going, leading, meeting). 


TV. Tur Trayscenventat Notions or Discourse, comprehending all 
that is commonly comprehended under grammar and logic : 
ideas such as noun, verb, particle, prose, verse, letter, syllogism, 
question, affirmative, negative, and many more. 

After these general notions, which constitute the first four 
classes, but before what we should call the categories, the 
Bishop admits two independent classes of transcendental notions, 
one for God, the other for the World, neither of which, as he 
says, can be treated as predicaments, because they are not 
capable of any subordinate species. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 61 


V. The fifth class, therefore, consists entirely of the idea of 
(rop. : 

VI. The sixth class comprehends the Wort or universe, 
divided into spiritual and corporeal, and embracing such Beton 
as spirit, angel, soul, heaven, planet, earth, land, &c. 

After this we arrive at the five categories, subdivided into 
thirty-four subaltern genera, which, together with the six 
classes of transcendental notions, complete, in the end, his 
forty genera. 

The Bishop begins with substance, the first difference of 
which he makes to be inanimate, and distinguishes by the 
name of 


VII. Exemenz, as his seventh genus. Of this there are several 
differences, fire, air, water, earth, each comprehending a number 
of minor species. 

Next comes supstance anrmatz, divided into vegetative and 
sensitive. ‘The vegetative again he subdivides into imperfect, such 
as minerals, and perfect, such as plants. 

The imperfect vegetative he subdivides into 


VIII. Sronz, and 
IX. Merat. 


Stone he subdivides by six differences, which, as he tells 
us, is the usual number of differences that he finds under 
every genus; and under each of these differences he enume- 
rates several species, which seldom exceed the number of nine 
under any one. 

Having thus gone through the imperfect vegetative, he comes 
to the perfect, or plant, which he says is a tribe so numerous 
and various, that he confesses he found a great deal of trouble 
in dividing and arranging it. It is in fact a botanical clagsi- 
fication, not based on scientific distinctions like that adopted 
by Linnzeus, but on the more tangible differences in the out- 
ward form of plants. It is interesting, if for nothing else, at 
least for the rich native nomenclature of all kinds of ee 
shrubs, and trees, which it contains. 

The herb he defines to be a minute and tender plant, and 
he has arranged it according to its leaves, in which way con- 
sidered, it makes his 


62 CHAPTER II. 


X. Class, Lear-nerss. 
Considered according to its flowers, it makes his 


XI. Class, or Frowsr-Herss. 
Considered according to its seed-vessels, it makes his 


XII. Class, or Srep-nerss. 


Kach of these classes is divided by a certain number of 
differences, and under each difference numerous species are 
enumerated and arranged. 

All other plants being woody, and being larger and firmer 
than the herb, are divided into 


XIII. Survss, and 


XIV. Trees. 


Having thus exhausted the vegetable kingdom, the Bishop 
proceeds to the animal or sensitive, as he calls it, this being 
the second member of his division of animate substance. This 
kingdom he divides into 


XV. Exsancurneovus. 
XVI., XVIL, XVIII. Sancurnzovs, namely Fisn, Birp, and 
Beast. 


Having thus considered the general nature of vegetables 
and animals, he proceeds to consider the parts of both, some 
of which are peculiar to particular plants and animals, and 
constitute his 


XIX. Genus, Pecuuiar Parts ; 
while others are general, and constitute his 


XX. Genus, Generar Parts. 


Having thus exhausted the category of substances, he goes 
through the remaining categories of quantity, quality, action, 
and relation, which, together with the preceding classes, are 
represented in the following table, the skeleton, in fact, of the 
whole body of human knowledge. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 63 


General; namely, those universal notions, whether belonging more properly to 
: GENERAL. I. 
 rnings called TRANSCENDENTAL | Retain MIXED. II. 
RELATION oF Action, III. 
Words ; Discourse. IV. 
Special ; denoting either 
Pe V. 

Creature ; namely, such things as were either created or concreated by God, not 
excluding several of those notions which are framed by the minds of men, 
considered either 

{ Collectively ; Worup. VI. 
Distributively ; according to the several kinds of beings, whether such as do 
belong to 
Substance. 
Pea ine ; Exiement, VII. 
Animate; considered according to their several 
Species ; whether 
Vegetative ; 
Imperfect ; as Minerals } a See 
Herp, considered ( LEAF. X. 
according to { FLowrr. XI. 
Perfect; as Plant eco XIIL,- | Reowee XI. XI. 
Tree, XIV. 
EXSANGUINEOUS, XV, 
Sensitive | Fisu. XVI. 
Sanguineous { Brrp. XVII. 
( Beast, XVIII, 
PECULIAR. XIX, 


Parts Vek XX, 


Accident, 


MaGnirupe, X XI. 

Quantity ; Space, XXII. 
Measure. XXITl. 
NATURAL PowER. XXIV. 
Hasit. XXV. 

Quality ; MANNERS. X XVI. 
SENSIBLE QUALITY. XXVII. 
Sickness. XXVIII. 
SPIRITUAL, X XIX. 

SG CoRPOREAL, XXX. 

* 3 Morton, XXXI. 


OPERATION. XXXII. 
CECONOMICAL, XX XIII. 


Private | Bossesstos XXXIV. 
PROVISIONS, XX XV. 


ip Bs . 7 sy) 
Relation ; whether more /Civir. XXXVI. 


| JUDICIAL. XX XVII. 

Public Miuitary. XX XVIII. 
NAVAL. XXXIX. 
ECCLESIASTICAL, XL, 


The Bishop is far from claiming any great merit 
for his survey of human knowledge, and he admits 
most fully its many defects. No single individual 
could have mastered such a subject, which would 
baffle even the united efforts of learned societies, Yet 


64, CHAPTER II. 


such as it is, and with all its imperfections, increased 
by the destruction of great part of his manuscript in 
the fire of London, it may give us some idea of what 
the genius of a Leibniz would have put in its place, 
if he had ever matured the idea which was from his 
earliest youth stirring in his brain. 

Having completed, in forty chapters, his philoso- 
phical dictionary of knowledge, Bishop Wilkins pro- 
ceeds to compose a philosophical grammar, according 
to which these ideas are to be formed into complex 
propositions and discourses. He then proceeds, in 
the fourth part of his work, to the framing of the 
language, which is to represent all possible notions, 
according as. they have been previously arranged. 
He begins with the written language or Real Cha- 
racter, as he calls it, because it expresses things, and 
not sounds, as the common characters do. It is, 
therefore, to be intelligible to people who speak dif- 
ferent languages, and to be read without, as yet, being 
pronounced at all. It were to be wished, he says, 
that characters could be found bearing some resem- 
blance to the things expressed by them; also, that the 
sounds of a language should have some resemblance 
to their objects. This, however, being impossible, he 
begins by contriving arbitrary marks for his forty 
genera. The next thing to be done is to mark the 
differences under each genus, This is done by affix- 
ing little lines at the left end of the character, 
forming with the character angles of different kinds, 
that is, right, obtuse, or acute, above or below; each 
of these affixes, according to its position, denoting the 
first, second, third, and following difference under the 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 65 


genus, these differences being, as we saw, regularly 
numbered in his philosophical dictionary. 

The third and last thing to be done is to express 
the species under each difference. This is done by 
affixing the like marks to the other end of the cha- 
racter, denoting the species under each difference, as 
they are Prrnered 3 in the dictionary. 

In this manner all the several notions of things | 
which are the subject of language, can be represented 
by real characters. But besides a complete dic- 
tionary, a grammatical framework, too, is wanted 
before the problem of an artificial language can ‘be 
considered as solved. In natural languages the gram- 
matical articulation consists either in separate par- 
ticles or in modifications in the body of a word, to 
whatever cause such modifications may be ascribed. 
Bishop Wilkins supplies the former by marks denoting 
particles, these marks being circular figures, dots, and 
little crooked lines, or virgulee, disposed in a certain 
manner. The latter, the grammatical terminations, 
are expressed by hooks or loops, affixed to either end 
of the character above or below, from which we learn 
whether the thing intended is to be considered as a 
noun, or an adjective, or an adverb; whether it be 
taken in an active or passive sense, in the plural or 
singular number. In this manner, everything that 
can be expressed in ordinary grammars, the gender, 
number, and cases of nouns, the tenses and moods 
of verbs, pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunc- 
tions, and interjections, are all rendered with a 
precision unsurpassed, nay unequalled, by any living 
language. | 

iat: . F 


66 CHAPTER II. 


Having thus shaped all his materials, the Bishop 
proceeds to give the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. 
written in what he calls his Real Character; and it 
must be confessed by every unprejudiced person that 
with some attention and practice these specimens are 
perfectly intelligible. 

Hitherto, however, we have only arrived at a written 
language. In order to translate this written into a 
spoken language, the Bishop has expressed his forty 
genera or classes by such sounds as ba, be, bi, da, de. 
di, ga, ge, gt, all compositions of vowels, with one or 
other of the best sounding consonants. The differences 
under each of these genera he expresses by adding to 
the syllable denoting the genus one of the following 
consonants, b, d, g, p, t, ¢, Z, 8, n, according to the 
order in which the differences were ranked before in 
the tables under each genus, b expressing the first 
difference, d the second, and so on. 

The species is then expressed by putting after 
the consonant which stands for the difference one 
of the seven. vowels, or, if more be wanted, the 
diphthongs. 

Thus we get the following radicals, corresponding 
to the general table of notions, as given above: 


if A General 5 i Ba 

Gi, ein Ae Relation Mixed . Ba 
III. ’ Relation of Action. Be 
AVE Discourse : Bi 
V. God ° ° ° Da 
VI. World . : : Da 
VII. Element : 2 De 
Vid Stone. , : Di 


IX. Metal . ; ; Do 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 


The differences of the first genus would be ex- 


pressed by, 


Leaf 
Flower 
Seed-vessel 
Shrub 
Tree : 
Hxsanguineous 
Fish 

| Bird 
Beast 
Peculiar . 
General . 

| Magnitude 


Herbs } 


Space 
Measure. : 
Natural Power 
Habit 
Manners 
Quality, sensible 
Sickness 
Spiritual 
Corporeal 
Motion . 
Operation 
(Economical . 
Possessions 
Provisions 
Civil 
Judicial . 
Military . 
Naval 
| Ecclesiastical. 


Bab, bad, bag, bap, bat, bac, baz, bas, ban. 


The species of the first difference of the first genus 


would be expressed by. 


Ga 
Ga 
Ge 
Gi 
Go 


Baba, baba, babe, babi, babo, babs, baby, babyi, babys. 


Fe 2 


68 CHAPTER II. 


According to the system of Bishop Wilkins, as ex- 
plained before, baba would mean being, baba thing, 
babe notion, babi name, babo substance, babe quantity, 
baby action, baby? relation. 

For instance, if De signify element, he says, then 
Deb must signify the first difference, which, according 
to my tables, is fire; and Deba will denote the first 
species, which is flame. Det will be the fifth difference 
under that genus, which is appearing meteor; Deta 
the first species, viz. rainbow; Deta the second, viz. 
halo. 

Thus if 7% signify the genus of Sensible Quality, 
then Tid must denote the second difference, which 
comprehends colours, and Zida must signify the 
second species under that difference, viz. redness, &c. 

The principal grammatical variations, laid down in 
the philosophical grammar, are likewise expressed by 
certain letters. If the word, he writes, is an adjec- 
tive, which, according to his method, is always’ de- 
rived from a substantive, the derivation is made by 
the change of the radical consonant into another 
consonant, or by adding a vowel to it. Thus, if Da 
signifies God, dua must signify divine ; if De signifies 
element, then due must signify elementary; if Do 
signifies stone, then duo must signify stony. In like 
manner voices and numbers and such-like accidents 
of words are formed, particles receive their phonetic 
representatives ; and in the end, all his materials being 
shaped, a complete grammatical translation of the 
Lord’s Prayer is given by the Bishop in his own 
newly-invented philosophical language. 

I hardly know whether the account here given of 


LANGUAGE AND REASON, 69 


the artificial language invented by Bishop Wilkins 
will be intelligible, for, in spite of the length to 
which it has run, many points had to be omitted 
which would have placed the ingenious conceptions 
of its author in a much brighter light. My object 
was chiefly to show that to people acquainted with a 
real language, the invention of an artificial language 
is by no means an impossibility, nay, that such an 
artificial language might be much more perfect, 
more regular, more easy to learn, than any of the 
spoken tongues of man. The number of radicals in 
the Bishop’s language amounts to not quite 3,000, 
and these, by a judicious contrivance, are sufficient 
to express every possible idea. Thus the same 
radical, as we saw, expresses with certain slight 
modifications, noun, adjective, and verb. Again, if 
Da is once known to signify God, then zda must 
signify that which is opposed to God, namely, idol. 
If dab be spirit, odab will be body; if dad be heaven, 
odad will be hell. Again, if saba is king, sava is 
royalty, salba is reigning, swmba to be governed, &c. 


Volaptk, Pasilingua, etc. 


It must be clear from these extracts how totally 
different in character and purpose were these schemes 
of a universal, because philosophical, language from 
the schemes lately put forward under such names as 
Volapiik, Pasilingua, Lingvo Esperanto, &. The 
propounders of these systems have a purely practical 
purpose. They take one or more languages as they 
find them, try to remove all irregularities, and by 
simplifying both grammar and dictionary, to facilitate 


70 CHAPTER II. 


the acquirement of an easy means of communication. 
Such experiments are quite unobjectionable, and, if 
properly conducted, may in time lead to something 
like a telegraphic language for the whole world. But 
they have nothing in common with the ideas of 
Descartes, Wilkins, and Leibniz. 


Reason and Language Inseparable. 


Let us now resume the thread of our argument. 
We saw that in an artificial language, the whole 
system of our notions, once established, may be 
matched to a system of phonetic exponents; but we 
maintain, until we are taught the contrary, that no 
real language was ever made in this manner.! 

There never was an independent array of deter- 
minate conceptions waiting to be matched with an 
independent array of articulate sounds. As a matter 
of fact, we never meet with articulate sounds except 
as wedded to determinate ideas ; nor do we ever meet 
with determinate ideas except as bodied forth in 
articulate sounds. Thisis a point of some importance 
on which there ought not to be any doubt or haze, 
and I therefore declare my conviction, whether right 
or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought, in 
one sense of the word, i.e. in the sense of reasoning, 
is impossible without language or without signs. After 
what I stated in my former lectures, I shall not be 
understood as here denying the reality of thought or 
mental activity in animals. Animals and infants who 
are without language, are alike without reason ; but 

‘See an important letter of Descartes on the same subject in his 


(Huvres completes, ed. Cousin, v. 61; quoted in the French translation 
of my Lectures. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. yA: 


the difference between animal and infant is, that the 
infant possesses the healthy germs of speech and 
reason, only not yet developed into actual speech and 
actual reason, whereas the animal has no such germs 
or faculties, capable of development in its present 
state of existence. We must concede to animals 
‘sensation, perception, memory, will, and judgment, 
but we cannot allow to them a trace of what the 
Greek called (dgos, i.e. reason, literally, gathering, 
a word which most rightly and naturally expresses 
in Greek both speech and reason. Animals were 
called by the Greek dloga, whether in the sense of 
without reason, or in the sense of speechless. Ldgos 
is derived from légevn, which, like Latin /egere, means, 
originally, to gather. Hence, katdlogos, a catalogue, 
a gathering, a list; collectio, a collection. In Homer,? 
légevn is hardly ever used in the same sense of saying, 
speaking or meaning, but always in the sense of 
gathering, or, more properly, of telling, for to tell is 
the German zdhlen, and means originally to count, 
to cast up. Ldgos, used in the sense of reason, meant 
originally, like the English tale, or the German Zahl,® 
gathering ; for reason, ‘though it penetrates into the 
depths of the sea and earth, elevates our thoughts as 
high as the stars, and leads us through the vast spaces 
and large rooms of this mighty fabric, + is nothing 
more or less than the gathering up of the single by 


1 Cf, Farrar, p. 125; Heyse, p. 41. 

2 Od, xiv. 197: ov Te Stamphéaiu A€ywv Euad Kndea Ovpov. Ulysses says 
he should never finish if he were to tell the sorrows of his heart, i. e. if 
he were to count or record them, not simply if he were to speak of 
them. 

3 Hxrod. v. 8, the tale, i.e. the number of the bricks. 

' Locke, On the Understanding, iv. 17, 9. 


Cae CHAPTER II. 


means of the general.' To sum up, as Kant says, 
it is the office of the senses to perceive, and the office 
of the understanding to think; but to think is to 
unite different conceptions in one act of conscious- 
ness.2_ The Latin intelligo, i.e. inter-ligo, for inter- 
lego, expresses most graphically the interlacing of the 
general and the single, which is the peculiar province 
of the intellect. Expressions like cogitare, i.e. co- 
agitare, or to comprehend, rest on similar metaphors. 
But Ldgos used in the sense of word, means likewise 
a gathering, for every word, or, at least, every name 
is based on the same process; it represents the 
gathering of single impressions under one general 
conception. As we cannot tell or count quantities 
without numbers, we cannot tell or recount things 
without words. There are tribes, we are told, that 
have no numerals beyond four. Should we say that 
they do not know if they have five children instead of 
four? They certainly do, as much as a cat knows 
that she has five kittens, and will look for the fifth, if 
it has been taken away from her. But if they have 
no numerals beyond four, they cannot reason beyond 
four. They would not know, as little as children 
know it, that two and three make five, but only that 
two and three make many. 

* This, too, is well put by Locke (iii. 3, 20) in his terse and homely 
language : ‘ I would say that all the great business of genera and species, 
and their essences, amounts to no more but this: that men making 
abstract ideas, and settling them in their minds, with names annexed to 
them, do thereby enable themselves to consider things, and discourse of 
them, as it were, 7 bundles, for the easier and readier improvement and 
communication of their knowledge, which would advance but slowly 


were their words and thoughts confined only to particulars.’ 
2 Kant, Proleg. p, 60. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 73 


Formation of Names. 


Man could not name a tree, or an animal, or a river, 
or any object whatever in which he took an interest, 
without discovering first some general quality that 
seemed at the time the most characteristic of the 
object to be named ;? or, to borrow an expression of 
Thomas Aquinas (I. P. 9. 18, art. 9. ed. 2.), Nomina — 
non sequuntur modum essendi, qui est in rebus, sed 
modum essendi, secundum quod in cognitione nostra 
est. In the lowest stage of language, an imitation of * 
the neighing of the horse would have been sufficient 
to call or recall the horse. Savage tribes are great 
mimics, and imitate the cries of animals with wonder- 
ful success. But this is not yet language. There are 
cockatoos who, when they see cocks and hens, will 
begin to cackle as if to inform us of what they see. 
This is not the way in which the words of our 
languages were formed. There is no trace of neighing 
in the Aryan names for horse. In naming the horse, 
the quality that struck the mind of the Aryan man 
as the most prominent was its swiftness. Hence 
from the root as,* to be sharp or swift (which we have 
in Latin acus, needle, and in the French diminutive 
aiguille, in acuo, I sharpen, in acer, quick, sharp, 
shrewd, in acrymony and even in ’cute), was derived 
asva, the runner, the horse. This asva appears in 

* This point has been well discussed by Dr. Otto Caspari, Die Sprache 
als psychischer Entwickelungsgrund : Berlin, 1864. 

2 La Science de Langage, par Alfred Gilly: Paris, 1868. 

5 Of. Sk. Asu, quick, w«vs, dewey, point, and other derivatives given 


by Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, i.101. The Latin catus, sharp, has 
been derived from Sk. so (syati), to whet. 


74 CHAPTER II. 


Lithuanian as aszva (mare), in Latin as ekvus, i.e. 
equus, in Greek as itxxos,! or tazos, in Old Saxon as 
chu. Many a name might have been given to the 
horse besides the one here mentioned; but, whatever 
name was given, it could only be formed by laying 
hold of the horse by means of some general quality, 
and by thus arranging the horse, together with other 
objects, under some general category. Many names 
might have been given to wheat. It might have 
been called eared, nutritious, graceful, waving, golden, 
* the child of the earth, &c. But it was called simply 
the white, the white colour of its grain seeming 
to distinguish it best from those plants with which 
otherwise it had the greatest similarity. For this is 
one of the secrets of onomatopoésis, or name-poetry, 
that each name should express, not the most impor- 
tant or specific quality, but that which strikes our 
fancy,” and seems most useful for the purpose of 
making other people understand what we mean. If 
we adopted the language of Locke, we should say 
that men were guided by wit rather than by judg- 
ment, in the formation of names. Wit, he says, lies 
most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those 
together with quickness and variety, wherein can be 
found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make 
up pleasant pictures, and agreeable visions, in the 
fancy: judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the 
other side, in separating carefully, one from another, 
ideas wherein can be found the least difference, 


1 Etym. Magn. p. 474, 12, texos onpaive tov immov. Curtius, G. FL. 
ii. 49. 
2 Pott, Htym. F. ii. 139. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 7) 


thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by 
affinity, to take one thing for another.t. While the 
names given to things according to Bishop Wilkins’ 
philosophical method would all be founded on judg- 
ment, those given by the early framers of language 
repose chiefly on wit or fancy. Thus wheat was 
called the white plant, hwaiteis in Gothic, in A.S. 
hwéte, in Lithuanian kwetys, in English wheat, and all - 
these words point to the Sanskrit sve ta, 1. e. white, 
the Gothic hweits, the A. S. hwit. In Sanskrit, sveta, 
white, is not applhed to wheat (which is called go- 
dhima, the smoke or waves of the earth), but it is 
applied to many other herbs and weeds, and as a 
compound (svetasunga, white-awned) it entered 
into the name of barley. In Sanskrit, silver is 
counted as white, and called sveta, and the feminine 
sveti, was once a name of the dawn, just as the 
French aube, dawn, which was originally alba. We 
arrive at the same result whatever words we examine ; 
they always express a general quality, supposed to be 
peculiar to the object to which they are attached. 
In some cases this is quite clear, in others it has to be 
brought out by minute etymological research. 

To those who approach these etymological re- 
searches with any preconceived opinions, it must be 
a frequent source of disappointment, when they have 
traced a word through all its stages back to its first 
starting-point, to find in the end, or rather in the 
beginning, nothing but roots of the most general 
powers, meaning to go, to move, to run, to do. But 
on closer consideration, this, instead of being dis- 

1 Locke, On the Human Understanding, ii. 11, 2. 


76 CHAPTER II. 


appointing, should rather increase our admiration for 
the wonderful powers of language, man being able out 
of these vague and pale conceptions to produce names 
expressive of the minutest shades of thought and 
feeling. It was by a poetical fiat that the Greek 
probata, which originally meant no more than things 
walking forward, became in time the name of cattle, 
and particularly of sheep. In Sanskrit, sarit, mean- 
ing goer, from sar, to go, became the name of river; 
sara, meaning the same, what runs or goes, was used 
for sap, but not fer river. Thus dru, in Sanskrit, 
means to run, dravat, quick; but drapsa is re- 
stricted to the sense of a drop, gutta. The Latin 
evum, Meaning going, from 2, to go, became the name 
of time, age ; and its derivative wviternus, or eternus, 
was made to express eternity. Thus in French, 
meubles means literally anything that is moveable, 
but 1t became the name of chairs, tables, and ward- 
robes. In ancient Greek dloga, without reason, was 
used for brute animals in general. In modern Greek 
dlogon has become the name for horse Viande, 
originally vivenda,? the English vwiands, that on which 
one lives, came to mean meat. SMrwmentum, lit. 
what serves for food, from frui, means in Latin corn 
in general; froment in French is wheat. 
Jumentwmin Latin means a beast of burden ; ywment 


1 addoyov, horse, occurs as early as 1198 in the Syllabus Gree. 
Membr. ed. Trinchera, p. 334: nat 76 ddroyév pou 70 patio, 70 88 -Aoyév 
pov TO Badioy, et equum meum nigrum, badium vero. 

* «La viande estoit un peu de poirée,’ dit Vauteur de la Vie d’ Isabella, 
sceur de Saint-Louis. ‘On ne pouvoit mie assez trouver viandes aux 
hommes et aux chevaux, rapporte la chronique de Saint-Denis.’ Michel 
Bréal, De la Méthode comparative, 1864, p. 15. 


ee ee, ey, 


4 


eS ee 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. re 


in French is a mare. A table, the Latin tabula, is 
originally what stands, or that on which things can be 
placed or stood ; it now means what dictionaries define 
as ‘a horizontal surface raised above the ground, used 
for meals and other purposes. The French tableau, 
picture, again goes back’ to the Latin tabula, a thing 
stood up, exhibited, and at last to the root std of 
stare, to stand. A stable, the Latin stabulwm, comes’ 
from the same root, but it was applied to the stand- 
ing-place of animals, to stalls or sheds. That on 
which a thing stands or rests is called its base, and 
basis in Greek meant originally no more than going, 
the base being conceived as ground on which it is 
safe to walk. What can be more general than facies, 
originally the make or shape of a thing, then the 
face? Yet the same expression is repeated in modern 
languages, feature being evidently a mere corruption 
of factuwra, the make. On the same principle the 
moon was called wna, i.e. losna, or lucina, the shin- 
ing; the lightning, fulmen from fulgere, the bright ; 
the stars stella, i.e. sterule, the Sanskrit staras, from 
st7rz, to strew, the strewers of light. 

All these etymologies may seem very unsatisfactory, 
vague, uninteresting, yet, if we reflect for a moment, 
we shall see that in no other way but this could the 
mind, or the gathering power of man, have compre- 
hended the endless variety of nature ! under a limited 
number of categories or names. What Bunsen called 

* Cf. Sankara on Vedanta-Sttra, 1, 3,28 (Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 
iii. 67), Akritibhis ka sabdanam sambandho na vyaktibhik, 
vyaktinam anantyat sambandhagrahandnupapatteh. ‘The 


relation of words is with the genera, not with individuals; for, as indi- 
viduals are endless, it would be impossible to lay hold of relations.’ 


78 CHAPTER It. 


‘the first poesy of mankind, the creation of words, is 
no doubt very different from the sensational poetry of 
later days; yet its very poverty and simplicity render 
it all the more valuable in the eyes of historians and 
philosophers. For of this first poetry, simple as it is, 
or of this first philosophy in all its childishness, man 
only is capable. He is capable of it because he can 
gather the single under the general; he is capable of 
it because he has the faculty of speech ; he is capable 
of it—we need not fear the tautology—because he is 
man. 


No Speech without Reason. 


Without speech no reason, without reason no speech. 
It is curious to observe the unwillingness with which 
many philosophers admit this, and the attempts they 
make to escape from this conclusion, all owing to the 
very influence of language which, in most modern 
dialects, has produced two words, one for language, 
the other for reason; thus leading the speaker to 
suppose that there is a substantial difference between 
the two, and not a mere formal difference... Thus 
Brown says: ‘To be without language, spoken or 
written, is almost to be without thought.’* But he 
qualifies this almost by what follows : ‘That man can 
reason without language of any kind, and conse- 
quently without general terms—though the opposite 
opinion is maintained by many very eminent philoso- 

1 In Dutch there is no difference between sede, oratio, and rede, ratio, 
though Siegenbeek, in his authorised grammar of the Dutch language, 
1804, tries to distinguish between rede, speech, and reden, reason, cause. 
Redeloos is irrational, redelijk, rational, reasonable, the German redlich; 


rvedenaar, an orator. 


2. Works, i. p. 475, 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 79 


phers—seems to me not to admit of any reasonable 
doubt, or, if it required any proof, to be sufficiently 
shown by the very invention of language which in- 
volves these general terms, and still more sensibly by 
the conduct of the uninstructed deaf and dumb !—to 
which also the evident marks of reasoning in the 
other animals—of reasoning which I cannot but 
think as unquestionable as the instincts that mingle 
with it—may be said to furnish a very striking addi- 
tional argument from analogy.’ 


Deaf and Dumb People. 


The wninstructed deaf and dumb, however, have 
never given any signs of reason, in the true sense of 
the word, though to a certain extent all the deaf and 
dumb people that live in the society of other men 
catch something of the rational behaviour of their 
neighbours.2, When instructed, the deaf and dumb 
certainly acquire general ideas even, without being able 
in every case to utter distinctly the phonetic exponents 
or embodiments of these ideas which we call words. 
But this is no objection to our general argument. 
The deaf and dumb are taught by those who possess 
both these general ideas and their phonetic embodi- 


1 Works, ii. p. 446. 

* Un médecin célébre de Vinstitution des sourds-muets, Itart, nous 
a dépeint I’état intellectuel et moral des hommes qu’un mutisme con- 
génital laissait réduits & leur propre expérience. Non-suelement ils 
subissent une véritable rétrogradation intellectuelle et morale qui les 
reporte en quelque sorte aux premiers temps des sociétés; mais leur 
esprit, formé en partie aux notions qui nous parviennent par les sens, 
ne saurait se développer.’ Claude Bernard, ‘ Exposé des Faits et du 
Principe de la Physiologie moderne,’ Revue ethnographique, 1869, 
p. 253. 


80 ‘CHAPTER II. 


ments, elaborated by successive generations of rational 
men. They are taught to think the thoughts of 
others, and if they cannot pronounce their words, 
they lay hold of these thoughts by other signs, and 
particularly by signs that appeal to their sense of 
sight, in the same manner as words appeal to our 
sense of hearing. These signs, however, are not the 
sions of things or their conceptions, as words are: 
they are the signs of signs, just as written language 
is not an image of our thoughts, but an image of the 
phonetic embodiment of thought.. Alphabetical writ- 
ing is the image of the sound of language, hieroglyphic 
writing the image of language or thought. 

One of the highest authorities on the teaching of 
deaf and dumb people, Samuel Heinicke (1729-90), 
the founder of the German system of education of the 
deaf and dumb, says, ‘the deaf and dumb must be 
educated in order to be able to think in concepts, and 
that in sounding and articulated words of our lan- 
guage, if he is to learn from us, to understand us, and 
equally to communicate with us. The thinking of 
the deaf and dumb without teaching, if one may call 
so the irregular concatenation of his dark represen- 
tations, moves only in the sphere of sensuous intu- 
itions, and its forms and his language are rude and 
often very uncertain words, framed by himself, imi- 
tating external impressions, and rendering received 
impressions. We do not think in written, but in 
articulated and sounding words. The written word 
is the representation of the articulated word for the 
sense of sight, and is taken as an expression of thought 
only on the supposition of language. It is impossible 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 81 


to think in writing, without some whispering support 
of articulation, because writing absent from sight, is 
not representable in the soul.’ 


Locke. 


The same supposition that it is possible to reason 
without signs, that we can form mental conceptions, 
hay, even mental propositions, without words, runs 
through the whole of Locke's philosophy! He 
maintains over and over again, that words are signs 
added to our conceptions, and added arbitrarily. He 
imagines a state 


In which man, though possessed of a great variety of 
thoughts, and such from which others, as well as himself, 
might receive profit and delight, was unable to make these 
thoughts appear. The comfort and advantage of society, how- 
ever, not being to be had without communication of thoughts, 
it was necessary that man should find out some external sen- 
sible signs, whereby those invisible ideas of which his thoughts 
are made up might be made known to others. For this purpose, 
nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those 
articulate sounds, which, with so much ease and variety, he 
found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how 
words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, 
came to be made use of by men as the signs of their ideas ; 
not by any natural connexion there is between particular arti- 
culate sounds and certain ideas; for then there would be but 
one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary compo- 
sition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of 
such an idea. 


Locke admits, indeed, that it is almost unavoidable, 
in treating of mental propositions, to make use of 
words. ‘Most men, if not all, he says (and who 
are they that are here exempted ?) ‘in their thinking 


' Locke, On the Human Understanding, iii, 2, 1. 
IT. G 


82 CHAPTER II. 


and reasoning within themselves, make use of words, 
instead of ideas, at least when the subject of their 
meditation contains in it complex ideas.’ But this 
is in reality an altogether different question; it is the 
question whether, after our notions have once been 
realised in words, it is possible to use words without 
reasoning, and not whether it is possible to reason 
without words. Thisis clear from the instances given 
by Locke. 


Some confused or obscure notions (he says) have served 
their turns; and many who talk very much of religion and 
conscience, of church and faith, of power and right, of obstruc- 
tions and humours, melancholy and choler, would, perhaps, 
have little left in their thoughts and meditations, if one should 
desire them to think only of the things themselves, and lay by 
those words, with which they so often confound others, and 
not seldom themselves also. * 

In all this there is, no doubt, great truth; yet, 
strictly speaking, it is as impossible to use words 
without thought, as to think without words. Even 
those who talk vaguely about religion, conscience, &c. 
have at least a vague notion of the meaning of the 
words they use; and if they ceased to connect any 
ideas, however incomplete and false, with the words 
they utter, they could no longer be said to speak, but 
only to make noises. The same holds good if we in- 
vert our proposition. It is possible, without language, 
to see, to perceive, to stare at, to dream about things; 
but, without words, not even such simple ideas as 
white or black can for a moment be realised. 

We cannot be careful enough in the use of our 
words. If reasoning is used synonymously with 


1 Locke, 7, ce. iv. 5, 4. 2 Thid. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 83 


knowing or thinking, with mental activity in gene- 
ral, it is clear that we cannot deny it either to the 
uninstructed deaf and dumb, or to infants and ani- 
mals.‘ A child knows as certainly before it can 
speak the difference between sweet and bitter (i.e. 
that sweet is not bitter), as it knows afterwards 
(when it comes to speak) that wormwood and sugar- 
plums are not the same thing.2 A child receives 
the sensation of sweetness; it enjoys it, it recollects 
it, it desires it again; but it does not know what 
sweet is; it is absorbed in its sensations, its plea- 
sures, its recollections ; it cannot look at them from 
above, it cannot reason on them, it cannot tell of 
them.? This is well expressed by Schelling. 

Without language (he says) it is impossible to conceive 
philosophical, nay, even any human consciousness; and hence 
the foundations of language could not have been laid con- 
sciously. Nevertheless, the more we analyse language, the 
more clearly we see that it transcends in depth the most con- 
scious productions of the mind. It is with language as with 
all organic beings; we imagine they spring into being blindly, 
and yet we cannot deny the intentional wisdom in the forma- 
tion of every one of them.‘ 

Hegel speaks more simply and more boldly. ‘It is 
in names,’ he says, ‘that we think.’ é 

‘ Amusement philosophique sur le Langage des Bestes, par le Pere 
Bougeant: Paris, 1739. 

pe loockes J.-c.jin 2.15, 

* *A child certainly knows that a stranger is not its mother; that its 
sucking-bottle is not the rod, long before he knows that it is impossible 
for the same thing to be and not to be.’—Locke, On the Human Under- 
standing, iv. 7, 9. 

* Hinleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie, p. 52; Pott, Etymolo- 


gische Forschungen, ii. 261. 
° Carritre, Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung, 


i AE 
G 2 


84, - CHAPTER II. 


The Sound of Words has no independent existence. 


It may be possible, however, by another kind of 
argument, less metaphysical perhaps, but more con- 
vincing, to show clearly that reason cannot become 
real without speech. Let us take any word, for 
instance, expervment. It is derived from experior. 
. Perior, like Greek perdn,' would mean to go through. 
Perittus is aman who has gone through many things ; 
periculum, something to go through, a danger. Hz- 
perior is to go through and come out (the Sanskrit, 
vyutpad); hence experience and experiment. The 
Gothic jaran, the English to fare, are the same words 
as perdn; hence the German Lrfahrung, experience, 
and Gefahr, periculum ; Wohlfahrt, welfare, the Greek 
euporia. As long then as the word experiment ex- 
presses this more or less general idea, it has a real 
existence. But take the mere sound, and change 
only the accent, and we get experiment, and this is 
nothing. Change one vowel or one consonant, ea- 
porvment or esperiment, and we have mere noises, 
what Heraclitus would call a mere psdphos, but no 
words. Character, with the accent on the first syllable, 
has a meaning in English, but none in German or 
French ; chardcter, with the accent on the second 
syllable, has a meaning in German, but none in Eng- 
lish or French; charactére, with the accent on the 
last, has a meaning in French, but none in English 
or German. It matters not whether the sound is arti- 
culate or not; articulate sound without meaning is 
even more unreal than inarticulate sound. If, then, 

+ Curtius, G. E. i. 237. 


LANGUAGE AND REASON. 85 


these articulate sounds, or what we may call the body 
of language, exist nowhere, have no independent 
reality, what follows? I think it follows that this 
so-called body of language could never have been 
taken up anywhere by itself, and added to our con- 
ceptions from without; from which it would follow 
again that our conceptions, which are now always 
clothed in the garment of language, could never 
have existed in a naked state. This would be per- 
fectly correct reasoning, if applied to anything else ; 
nor do I see that it can be objected to as bearing on 
thought and language. If we never find skins except 
as the teguments of animals, we may safely conclude 
that skins cannot exist without animals. If colour 
cannot exist by itself (amav ydp xpépua év odpare), 
it follows that neither can anything that is coloured 
exist without colour. A colouring substance may be 
added or removed; but colour without some substance, 
however ethereal, is, in rerwm naturd, as impossible 
as substance without colour, or as substance without 
form or weight. 

Granting, however, to the fullest extent, the one 
and indivisible character of language and thought, 
agreeing even with the Polynesians, who express 
thinking by speaking in the stomach,’ we may yet, I 
think, for scientific purposes, claim the same liberty 
which is claimed in so many sciences, namely, the 
liberty of treating separately what in the nature of 
things cannot be separated. Though colour cannot 
be separated from some ethereal substance, yet the 
science of optics treats of light and colour as if they 


1 Farrar, p. 125. 


86 CHAPTER II. 


existed by themselves. The geometrician reasons on 
lines without taking cognisance of their breadth, of 
planes without considering their depth, of bodies 
without thinking of their weight. It is the same in 
language, and though I consider the identity of lan- 
guage and reason as one of the fundamental principles 
of our science, I think it will be most useful to begin, 
as it were, by dissecting the dead body of language, 
by anatomising its phonetic structure, without any 
reference to its function, and then to proceed to a 
consideration of language in the fulness of life, and to 
watch its energies, both in what we call its growth 
and its decay. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE ALPHABET. 


EK proceed now to dissect the body of lan- 

guage. In doing this we treat language as a 
mere corpse, not caring whether it ever had any life 
or meaning, but simply trying to find out what it is 
made of, how sounds are produced, how impressions 
are made upon our ear, and how they can be clas- 
sified. In order to do this it is not sufficient to 
examine our alphabet, such as it is, though no doubt 
the alphabet, if arranged according to scientific prin- 
ciples, may very properly be called the table of the 
elements of language. 


Greek Classification of Letters. 


But what do we learn from our AB C? what even, 
if we are told that £ is a guttural tenuis, s a dental 
sibilant, m a labial nasal, y a palatal liquid? These 
are names which are borrowed from Greek and Latin 
grammars. They expressed more or less happily the 
ideas which the scholars of Athens and Alexandria 
had formed of the nature of certain letters. But these 
ideas were by no means always correct, and, as 
translated into our grammatical phraseology they 
have frequently lost their original meaning. Our 


88 CHAPTER ITI. 


modern grammarians speak of tenuis and media, but 
they define tenuis not as a bare or thin letter, so 
called originally in opposition to the aspirated con- 
sonants which in Greek were spoken of as thick, rough 
or shaggy (dacv), but on the contrary as the hardest 
and strongest articulation ; nor are they always aware 
that the mediw or middle letters were originally 
so called because, as pronounced at Alexandria, they 
seemed to stand halfway between the bare and the 
rough letters, i.e. the aspirates, being pronounced 
with less breath than the aspirates, with more than the 
tenues.! Plato's division of letters, as given in his 
Cratylus, is very much that which we still profess to 
follow. He speaks of voiced letters (@wrijevta, vo- 
cales), our vowels; and of voiceless letters (dpwva), 
our consonants, or mutes. But he divides the latter 
into two classes: first, those which are voiceless, but 
not soundless (dovievta pev ov, od pévTor ye apOoyya), 
afterwards called semi-vowels (u(pwva); and secondly, 
the real mutes, both voiceless and soundless, i.e. all 
consonants, except the semi-vowels (a@oyya).? In 


' Scholion to Dionysius Thrax, in Anecdota Bekk. p. 810: Swvnrina 
épyava Tpia eiolv, 7 yA@ooa, of ddd6vTEs, TA XEIAN. Tots pev ody dxpos 
xeiAeot maAovpévois expwveira [TO mw], wate oxeddv pnde dAlyov Tt 
mvevpa TapekBaive* dvovyopevwy 5€ TOV xELAéwy Tavu Kal TVEdpaToS 
ToAAov éftdvTos, expwvetTa TO P* TO Se B, Expwvovpevov bpoiws Tois 
Gkpos THY XELAEwY, TovTéoTL TEpl TOV avTOoY TéTOV TOs TpoAExOEcat 
Tav pwvntinav Opyavwv, ore navy dvwye TA yxElAn ws TO >, OvTE 
mavu mAEl ws TO 7, GAAA peony Tiva SiéLodov TO Tvevuare TEperopevws 
Sidwov, «.7.A. See Rudolph von Raumer, Sprachwissenschaftliche 
Schriften, p. 102, who shows that the Scholion was written before 730 
A.D.; Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, ii. p. 30. It is clear that the scho- 
liast speaks of the pronunciation of his own time, when the aspirates 
had become mere spirants, and when the mediz, too, approached to 
that pronunciation which they have in modern Greek. 

- 2 Raumer, l. c. p. 100. 


THE ALPHABET. 89 


later times, the scheme adopted by Greek gram- 
marians is as follows:— 


I. Phonéenta, vocales, voiced, vowels. 
Il. Symphona, consonantes. 
II. 1. Hémtphona, semi-vocales, half-voiced, 
], m,n, r, 8; or, Hygrd, liquide, fluid, 
Pett: 
II. 2. Aphona, mute. 
a. Psild, tenues (hard, surd); b. Mésa, medize (soft, 
sonant) ; ¢. Daséa, aspirate. 


Keats Ds reget lh ch, th, ph. 


The Pratisakhyas. 


Another classification of letters, more perfect, be- 
cause deduced from a language (the Sanskrit) at a 
time when it was not yet reduced to writing, but 
carefully watched, and preserved by oral tradition, is 
to be found in the so-called Pratisakhyas, works on 
phonetics, belonging to different schools in which the 
ancient texts of the Veda were handed down from 
generation to generation with an accuracy far ex- 
ceeding that of the most painstaking copyists of MSS. 
Some of these works have lately been published and 
translated, and may be consulted by those who take 
an interest in these matters.! 


1 Pratisikhya du Rig-V eda, par M. Ad. Regnier, in the Journal 
asiatique. Paris, 1856-58. 

Text und Uebersetzung des Pritisikhya, oder der dltesten Phonetik 
und Grammatik, in M. M.’s edition of the Rig-Veda. Leipzig, 1856. 

Das Vagasanéyi-Pratisakhyam, published by Prof. A. Weber, 
in Indische Studien, vol. iv. Berlin, 1858. 

The Atharva-Veda Pratisikhya, by W. D. Whitney. New- 
haven, 1862. The same distinguished scholar has published an edition 


90 CHAPTER III. 


Modern Phoneticians and Elocutionists. 


Of late years the whole subject of phonetics has 
been taken up with increased ardour by scientific 
men, and assaults have been made from three dif- 
ferent points by different armies, philologists, physio- 
logists, and mathematicians. The best philological 
treatises I can recommend (without mentioning 
earlier works, such as a very excellent treatise by 
Bishop Wilkins, 1688),! are the essays published from 
time to time by Mr. Melville Bell,? Mr. Alexander John 
Ellis, and Mr. Sweet. Other works by R. von 
Raumer,* F. H. du Bois-Reymond,’ Lepsius,® Thau- 
sing,’ may be consulted with advantage in their 


of the Pratisakhya of the Taittiriya-Veda. A similar work for 
the Saimaveda, under the title of Riktantra-vydkarana, has 
been discovered and published by Dr. Burnell; Mangalore, 1879. 

* Republished in Techmer’s Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Sprachwissen- 
schaft, vol. iv. p. 339. 

* A New Elucidation of the Principles of Speech and Elocution, by 
Alex. Melville, 1849. The same author has published several other 
works on phonetics, and has prepared an alphabet which is to indicate 
the physiological character of each letter, so as really to deserve the 
name of ‘ Visible Speech,’ a name too freely granted to the ancient Sys- 
tems of writing. See Visible Speech, a New Fuct, demonstrated by A. 
Melville Bell. 1865, and 1867. Lectures on Phonetics, delivered at 
Oxford, 1885. 

3 Primer of Phonetics, 1890. 

* Gesammelte Sprachwissenschaftliche Schriften, von Rudolph von 
Raumer. Frankfort, 1863. (Chiefly on classical and Teutonic lan- 
guages. ) 

> Kadmus, oder Allgemeine Alphabetik, von F. H. du Bois-Reymond. 
Berlin, 1862. (Containing papers published as early as 1811, and full 
of ingenious and original observations. ) 

° Lepsius, Standard Alphabet, second edition, 1863. (On the subject 
in general, but particularly useful for African languages. ) 

" Das natiirliche Lautsystem der menschlichen Sprache, von Dr. M. 
Thausing. Leipzig, 1863. (With special reference to the teaching of 
deaf and dumb persons.) 


THE ALPHABET. 91 


respective spheres. The Physiological works which 
I found most useful and intelligible to a reader not 
professionally devoted to these studies were Miller's 
‘Handbook of Physiology, Briicke’s ‘ Grundziige der 
Physiologie und Systematik der Sprachlaute’ (Wien, 
1856), Funke’s ‘Lehrbuch der Physiologie, and 
Czermak’s articles in the ‘Sitzungsberichte der k.k. 
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien.’ ! 

Among works on mathematics and acoustics, I 
have consulted Sir John Herschel’s ‘Treatise on 
Sound,’ in the ‘ Encyclopzedia Metropolitana ;’ Pro- 
fessor Willis’s paper ‘On the Vowel Sounds and on 
Reed Organ-Pipes,’ read before the Cambridge Phy- 
siological Society in 1828 and 1829; but chiefly 
Professor Helmholtz’s classical work ‘Die Lehre 
von den Tonempfindungen’ (Braunschweig, 1863), 
a work giving the results of the most minute scien- 
tific researches in a clear, classical, and truly popular 
form, so seldom to be found in scientific books. 

The whole subject of Phonetics has lately been 
treated in the most exhaustive and masterly manner 
by Dr. Techmer in the first volume of his Interna- 
zionale Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft 
Leipzig, 1884. 


Spelling Reformers. 


I ought not to omit to mention here the valuable 
services rendered by those who, for nearly fifty 
years, have been labouring in England to turn the 
results of scientific research to practical use, in de- 


1 See also Populdre physiologische Vorirdge, von J. N. Czermak : 
Wien, 1869. 


92 CHAPTER III. 


vising and propagating a new system of ‘Brief 
Writing and True Spelling, best known under the 
name of the Phonetic Reform. I am far from under- 
rating the difficulties that stand in the way of such 
a reform, and I am not so sanguine as to indulge in 
any hopes of seeing it carried for the next three or 
four generations. But I feel convinced of the truth 
and reasonableness of the principles on which that 
reform rests, and as the innate regard for truth and 
reason, however dormant or timid at times, has 
always proved irresistible in the end, enabling men 
to part with all they hold most dear and sacred, 
whether corn-laws, or Stuart dynasties, or Papal 
legates, or heathen idols, I doubt not but that the 
effete and corrupt orthography will follow in their 
train. Nations have before now changed their nu- 
merical figures, their letters, their chronology, their 
weights and measures; and though Mr. Pitman may 
not live to see the results of his persevering and 
disinterested exertions, it requires no prophetic 
power to perceive that what at present is pooh- 
poohed by the many, will make its way in the end, 
unless met by arguments stronger than those hitherto 
levelled at the ‘Fonetic Nuz.’ One argument which 
might be supposed to weigh with the student of 
language, viz. the obscuration of the etymological 
structure of words, I cannot consider as very for- 
midable. The pronunciation of languages changes 
according to fixed laws, the spelling has changed in 
the most arbitrary manner, so that if our spelling 
followed strictly and unswervingly the pronunciation 
of words, it would in reality be of greater help to the 


THE ALPHABET, 93 


critical student of language than the present uncer- 
tain and unscientific mode of writing.! 

Although considerable progress has thus been made 
in the analysis of the human voice, the difficulties 
inherent in the subject have been increased rather 
than diminished by the profound and laborious re- 
searches carried on independently by physiologists, 
students of acoustics, and philologists. The human 
voice opens a field of observation in which these 
three sciences meet, and to neglect the results ob- 
tained by any one of them is entirely to deprive the 
study of Phonetics of its scientific character. The 
substance of speech or sound has to be analysed by 
the mathematician and the experimental philosopher ; 
the organs or instruments of speech have to be ex- 
amined by the anatomist ; and the history of speech, 
the actual varieties of sound which have become typi- 
fied in language, fall to the province of the student 
of language, and likewise of the practical elocutionist. 
Under these circumstances it is absolutely necessary 
that students should co-operate in order to bring these 
scattered researches to a successful termination ; and 
I take this opportunity of expressing my obligation 
to Dr. Rolleston, our late Professor of Physiology, 
Mr. G. Griffith, Deputy-Professor of Experimental 
Philosophy, Mr. A. J. Ellis, and others, for their kind- 
ness in helping me through difficulties which, but for 
their assistance, I should not have been able to over- 
come without much loss of time. 


* See an article of mine in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1876, 
‘On Spelling,’ reprinted separately by Mr. Pitman, London, 1880. 


94, CHAPTER III. 


The Voice. 


What can seem simpler than the A BC, and yet 
what is more difficult when we come to examine it? 
Where do we find an exact definition of vowel and 
consonant, and how they differ from each other? The 
vowels, we are told, are simple emissions of the voice, 
the consonants cannot be articulated except with the 
assistance of vowels. If this were so, letters such as 
s, f, 7, could not be classed as consonants, for there is 
no difficulty in pronouncing these without the assist- 
ance of a real vowel. Czermak, on the contrary, calls 
these letters consonants in quite a different sense. He 
would reserve the name of consonant (Mvtlauter) for 
all sonant letters, nay even for vowels, while he looks 
upon the surd consonants as the only true Selbstlauter, 
because they are not accompanied by voice.’ Again, 
what is the difference between a, 7,2? What is the 
difference between a tenuis and media, surd and 
sonant, hard and soft consonants, a difference almost 
incomprehensible to certain races; for instance, the 
Mohawks and the inhabitants of Saxony ? 

What we hear may be divided, first of all, into 
Noises and Tones. Noises, such as the rustling of 
leaves, the jarring of doors, or the clap of thunder, 
are produced by irregular impulses imparted to the 
air. Tones, such as we hear from tuning-forks, 
strings, flutes, organ pipes, are produced by regular 
periodical (isochronous) vibrations of elastic air. 
That tone, musical tone, or tone in its simplest form, 
is produced by tension, and ceases after the sounding 

1 Physiologische Vortrdge, p. 107. 


— ee ee eee 


ee 


THE ALPHABET. 95 


body has recovered from that tension, seems to have 
been vaguely known to the early framers of language, 
for the Greek tonos, tone, is derived from a root tan, 
meaning to stretch, to extend. Pythagoras! knew 
more than this. He knew that when chords of the 
same quality and the same tension are to sound a 
fundamental note, its octave, its fifth, and its fourth, 
their respective lengths must be like 1 to 2, 2 to 8, 
and 3 to 4. 
Strength, Pitch, and Quality. 

When we hear a single note, the impression we 
receive seems very simple, yet it is in reality very 
complicated. We can distinguish in each note— 

1. Its strength or loudness, 

2. Its height or pitch, 

3. Its quality, or, as it is sometimes called, timbre : 
in German Tonfarbe, i.e. colour of tone. 

Strength or loudness depends upon the amplitude 
of the excursions of the vibrating particles of air which 
produce the wave. 

Height or pitch depends on the length of time 
that each particle requires to perform an excursion, 
i.e. on the number of vibrations executed in a given 
time. If, for instance, the pendulum of a clock, 
which oscillates once in each second, were to mark 
smaller portions of time, it would cause musical tones 
to be heard. Sixteen double oscillations in one se- 
cond would be sufficient to bring out tone, though 
its pitch would be so low as to be hardly perceptible. 
For practical purposes, the lowest tone we hear is 
produced by 30 double vibrations in one second, the 

* Helmholtz, Linleitung, p. 2. 


96 CHAPTER III. 


highest by 4,000. Between these two lie the usual 
seven octaves of our musical instruments. It is said 
to be possible, however, to produce perceptible mu- 
sical tones through 11 octaves, beginning with 16 and 
ending with 38,000 double vibrations in one second, 
though here the lower notes are mere hums, the 
upper notes mere clinks. The A’ of our tuningforks, 
as fixed in 1859 by a decree of the French ministry, 
requires 437-5 double, or 875 single! vibrations 
in one second. In Germany the A’ tuning-fork 
makes 440 double vibrations in one second. It 
is clear that beyond the lowest and the highest tones 
perceptible to our ears, there is a progress ad infinitum, 
musical notes as real as those which we hear, yet be- 
yond the reach of owr sensuous perception. It is the 
same with the other senses. We can perceive the 
movement of the pendulum, but we cannot perceive 
the slower movement of the hand on the watch. We 
can perceive the flight of a bird, but we cannot per- 
ceive the quicker movement of a cannon-ball. This, 
better than anything else, shows how dependent we 
are on our senses; and how, if our senses are our 
weapons for the discovery of truth, they are likewise 
the chains that keep us from soaring too high. 

Up to this point everything, though wonderful enough, 
isclear and intelligible. As we hear a note, we can find 
out, with mathematical accuracy, to how many vibra- 
tions in one second it is due; and if we want to produce 


+ It is customary to reckon by single vibrations in France and Ger- 
many, although some German writers adopt the English fashion of 
reckoning by double vibrations or complete excursions backwards and 
forwards. Helmholtz uses double vibrations, but Scheibler uses single 
vibrations. De Morgan calls a double oscillation a ‘ swing-swang.’ 


_ = 


ea Oe 


— 


THE ALPHABET, 97 


the same note, an instrument, such as the siren, which 
gives a definite number of impulses to the air within 
a given time, will enable us to do it in the most 
mechanical manner. 

When two waves of one note enter the ear in 
the same time as one wave of another, the interval 
between the two is an octave. 

When three waves of one note enter the ear in the 
same time as two waves of another, the interval 
between the two notes is a Jifth. 

When four waves of one note enter the ear in the 
same time as three waves of another, the interval 
between the two notes is a fourth. 

When jive waves of one note enter the car in the 
same time as four waves of another, the interval 
between the two notes is a major third. 

When six waves of one note enter the ear in the 
same time as five waves of another, the interval 
between the two notes is a minor third. 

When five waves of one note enter the ear in the 
same time as three waves of another, the interval 
between the two notes is a major siath, 

All this is but the confirmation of what was known 
to Pythagoras. He took a vibrating cord, and, by 
placing a bridge so as to leave 2 of the cord on the 
right, $ on the left side, the left portion vibrating by 
itself gave him the octave of the lower note of the 
right portion. So, again, by leaving 3 on the right, 
3 on the left side, the left portion vibrating gave him 
the fifth of the right portion. 

But it is clear that we may hear the same tone, 
1.e. the result of exactly the same number of vibra- 

Op H 


98 ' CHAPTER IIT. 


tions in one second, produced by different instruments, 
such as our vocal organs, a flute, a violoncello, a 
fife, or a double bass. They are tones of the same 
pitch, and yet they differ in character, and this differ- 
ence is called their quality. But what is the cause of 
these various qualities? By a kind of negative 
reasoning, it had long been supposed that, as quality 
could neither arise from the amplitude nor from the 
duration, it must be due to the form of the vibrations. 
It has now, however, been proved that this is so, by 
applying the microscope to the vibrations of different 
musical instruments, and thus catching the exact out- 
line of their respective vibrations—a result which 
before had been but imperfectly attained by an instru- 
ment called the Phonautograph. What is meant by 
the form of waves may be seen from the following 
outlines :-— 


THE ALPHABET. 99 


The Qualities of Vowels. 


It has likewise been shown that the different forms 
of the vibrations which are the cause of what we call 
quality or colour, are likewise the cause of the presence 
or absence of certain harmonies, or by-notes; in fact, 
that varying quality and varying harmonics are but 
two expressions of the same thing. 

Harmonics are the secondary tones which can be 
perceived even by the unassisted ear, if, after lifting 
the pedal, we strike a key on a pianoforte. These 
harmonics arise from a string vibrating as if its 
motion were compounded of several distinct vibrations 
of strings of its full length, and one-half, one-third, 
one-fourth, &c., part of its length. Each of these 
shorter lengths would vibrate twice, three times, four 
times as fast as the original length, producing corre- 
sponding tones. Thus, if we strike c, we hear, if listen- 
ing attentively, 0’, a’, 0”, EB”, a’, B” flat, 0”, &e. 


: feu 
pagew “ineeseces 7s 7 2 £201 RE Sri To Te ET OE nad ES 
SS ee ie boa 2 = eres oe ee 1 
i Y. 3 4 5 6 7 8 
Cc Cc rene Ce E’ Gigs Geotlatee Ge 


That the secondary notes are not merely imagin- 
ary or subjective can be proved by a very simple 
and amusing experiment. If we place little soldiers 
—very light cavalry—on the strings of a pianoforte 
and then strike a note, all the riders that sit on 
strings representing the secondary tones will shake, 
and possibly be thrown off, because these strings 

He? 


100 CHAPTER III. 


vibrate in sympathy with the secondary tones of the 
string struck, while the others remain firm in their 
saddles. Another test can be applied by means of 
resounding tubes, tuned to different notes. If we 
apply these to our ear, and then strike a note the se- 
condary tones of which are the same as the notes to 
which the resounding tubes are tuned, those notes will 
sound loudly and almost yell in our ears; while if the 
tubes do not correspond to the harmonics of the note 
played, the resounding tubes will not answer in the 
same manner. 

We thus see, again, that what seems to us a simple 
impression, the one note struck on the pianoforte, 
consists of many impressions which together make 
up what we hear and perceive. We are not conscious 
of the harmonics which follow each note and deter- 
mine its quality, but we know, nevertheless, that 
these by-notes strike our ear, and that our senses 
receive them and suffer from them. The same re- 
mark applies to the whole realm of our sensuous 
knowledge. There is a broad distinction. between 
sensation and perception. There are many things 
which we perceive at first and which we perceive 
again as soon as our attention is called to them, but 
which, in the ordinary run of life, are to us as if they 
did not exist at all. When I first came to Oxford, I 
was constantly distracted by the ringing of bells; 
after a time I ceased even to notice the dinner-bell. 
There are earrings much in fashion just now—little 
gold bells with coral clappers. Of course they pro- 
duce a constant jingling which everybody hears 
except the lady who wears them in her ears. In 


THE ALPHABET. 101 


these cases, however, the difference between sensation 
and perception is simply due to want of attention. 
In other cases our senses are really incapable, with- 
out assistance, of distinguishing the various con- 
stituents of the objective impressions produced from 
without. We know, for instance, that white light is 
a vibration of ether, and that it is a compound of the | 
single colours of the solar spectrum. A prism will 
at once analyse that compound, and divide it into its 
component parts. To our apprehension, however, 
white light is something simple, and our senses are 
too coarse to cieceetieh its component elements by 
any effort whatsoever. 

We now shall be better able to understand what 
I consider a most important discovery of Professor 
Helmholtz." It had been proved by Professor G. S 
Ohm? that there is only one vibration without har- 
monics, viz. the simple pendulous vibration. It had 
likewise been proved by Fourier, Ohm, and other 
mathematicians,* that all compound vibrations or 
sounds can be divided into so many simple or pendu- 
lous vibrations. But it is due to Professor Helmholtz 
that we can now determine the exact configuration 
of many compound vibrations, and determine the 
presence and absence of the harmonics which, as we 
saw, caused the difference in the quality, or colour, 
or tumbre of sound. Thus he found that in the violin 
as compared with the guitar or pianoforte, the pri- 
mary note is strong, the secondary tones from two to 
six are weak, while those from seven to ten are much 


' Helmholtz, l. ce. p. 82. RON Dade 
Stine pense 


102 CHAPTER III. 


more distinct.!. In the clarionet® the odd harmonics 
only are perceptible, in the hautboy the even har- 
monics are of equal strength. 

Let us now see how all this tells on language. 
When we are speaking we are in reality playing on a 
musical instrument, and a more perfect instrument 
than was ever invented by man. It is a wind-in- 
strument, in which the vibrating apparatus 1s sup- 
plied by the chord vocales, while the outer tube, or 
bells, through which the waves of sound pass, are 
furnished by the different configurations of the mouth. 


The Vocal Organs. 


I shall try, as well as I can, to describe, with 
the help of some diagrams, the general structure of 
this instrument, though in doing so I ean only retail 
the scant information which I gathered myself from 
our excellent Professor of Physiology at Oxford, Dr. 
Rolleston. He kindly showed and explained to me 
by actual dissection, and with the aid of the newly- 
invented laryngoscope® (a small looking-glass, which 
enables the observer to see as far as the bifurcation 
of the windpipe and the bronchial tubes), the bones, 
the cartilages, the ligaments and muscles, which 
together form that extraordinary instrument on 
which we play our words and thoughts. Some 
parts of it are extremely complicated, and I would 
not venture to act even as interpreter of the dif- 
ferent and sometimes contradictory views held by 


1 Helmholtz, 7. c. p. 143. Als: GC.) DaghOias 
3 Czermak, Uber den Kehlkopfspiegel und seineVerwerthung. Leipzig, 
1860; 2nd ed. 18638. 


THE ALPHABET. 103 


Miller, Briicke, Czermak, Funke, and other dis- 
tinguished physiologists, on the mechanism of the 
various cartilages, the thyroid, cricoid, and arytenoid, 
which together constitute the levers of the larynx. 
It fortunately happens that the most important 
organs which are engaged in the formation of letters 
lie above the larynx, and are so simple in their 
structure, and so open to constant inspection and 
examination, that, with the diagrams here inserted, 
there will be little difficulty, I hope, in explain- 
ing their respective functions. 

There is, first of all, the thorax (1), which, by alter- 
nately compressing and dilating the lungs, performs 
the office of bellows. 

The next diagram (2), shows the trachea, a carti- 
laginous and elastic pipe, which terminates in the 
lungs by an infinity of roots or bronchial tubes, its 
upper extremity being formed into a species of head, 
called the laryna, situated in the throat, and com- 
posed of five cartilages. 

The uppermost of these cartilages, the epiglottis (3), 
is intended to open and shut, like a valve, the aperture 
of the glottis, i.e. the superior orifice of the larynx 
(fissura laryngea pharyngis). The epiglottisis a leaf- 
shaped elastic cartilage, attached by its narrower 
end to the thyroid cartilage, and possessing a midrib 
overhanging and corresponding to the fissure of the 
glottis. The broader end of the leaf points freely 
upwards towards the tongue, in which direction the 
entire cartilage presents a concave, as towards the 
larynx a convex, outline. In swallowing, the epi- 
glottis falls over the larynx, like a saddle on the back 


CHAPTER III. 


104 


In the formation of certain letters a 


of a horse. 


horizontal narrow fissure may be produced by de- 


Ee Se 
. 


ee 
’ 


5. External intercostals. 
6. Rectus abdominis 
7. Internal oblique. 


pressing the epiglottis over the vertical false and 


46¢q . 
Ae Pao 
e ne 
3a & et 
:3 § m (=) 
Mees ci 
go Bn 2 oS) 
eee hs 
HO FH ee 
SOS gO fa} 
Has o 
re S 
o 
= 
P= 
ata 


THE ALPHABET. 105 


Superior 
Cornea 


Inferior 


Corn 


Bronchial Tubes 


Bronchial Tubes 


106 CHAPTER III. 


Opening uf 


Nasal duct 
v7 


: 


: 
f 
’ 


Within the larynx (4), rather above its middle, 
between the thyroid and arytenoid cartilages, are 
two elastic ligaments, like the parchment of a drum 
split in the middle, and forming an aperture which is 
called the interior or true glottis, and corresponds in 


THE ALPHABET. 107 


direction with the exterior glottis. This aperture 1s 
provided with muscles, which enlarge and contract it 
at pleasure, and otherwise modify the form of the 
larynx. ‘The three cartilages of the larynx supply 
the most perfect mechanism for stretching or relaxing 
the chords, and likewise, as it would seem, for dead- 
ening some portion of them by pressure of a protu- 


Fig. 4. 


berance on the under-side of the epiglottis (in Ger- 
man, Epiglottis-wulst). These chords are of different 
lengths in children and grown-up people, in man 
and in woman. Their average length in man is 
18} mm. when relaxed, 23} mm. when stretched ; 
in woman, 122 mm. when relaxed, 153 mm. when 
stretched: thus giving a difference of about one- 


108 CHAPTER III. 


third between the two sexes, which accounts for the 
different pitch of male and female voices.! 

The tongue, the cavity of the fauces, the lips, teeth, 
and palate, with its velum pendulum and uvula per- 
forming the office of a valve between the throat and 
nostrils, as well as the cavity of the nostrils themselves, 
are all concerned in modifying the impulse given to 
the breath as it issues from the larynx, and in pro- 
ducing the various vowels and consonants. 


Vowels. 


After thus taking to pieces the instrument, the 
tubes and reeds as it were of the human voice, let 
us now see how that instrument is played by us in 
speaking or in singing. Familiar and simple as 
singing or music in general seems to be, it is, if we 
analyse it, one of the most wonderful phenomena. 
What we hear when listening to a chorus or a sym- 
phony is a commotion of elastic air, of which, to 
quote from Helmholtz, the wildest sea would give a 
very inadequate image. The lowest tone which the 
ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one 
second, the highest to about 4,000. Consider then 
what happens in a Presto, when thousands of voices 
and instruments are simultaneously producing waves 
of air, each wave crossing the other, not only like 
the surface waves of the water, but like spherical 
bodies, and, as it would seem, without any percep- 
tible disturbance ;? consider that each tone is accom- 


* Funke, Lehrbuch der Physiologie, p. 664, from observations made 
by J. Miller. 
* Weber, Wellenlehre, p. 495. 


ns 


THE ALPHABET. 109 


panied by secondary tones, that each instrument has 
its peculiar tvmbre, due to secondary vibrations ; and, 
lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of 
waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by 
laws which determine what we call harmony, and by 
certain traditions or habits which determine what 
we call melody—both these elements being absent in 
the songs of birds—that all this must be reflected 
like a microscopic photograph on the two small 
organs of hearing, and there excite not only percep- 
tion, but perception followed by a new feeling even 
more mysterious, which we call either pleasure or 
pain; and it will be clear that we are surrounded on 
all sides by miracles transcending all we are accus- 
tomed to call miraculous, and yet disclosing to the 
genius of an Euler or a Newton laws which admit of 
the most minute mathematical determination. 

If we pronounce a vowel, what happens? Breath 
is emitted from the lungs, and some kind of tube is 
formed by the mouth through which, as through a 
clarionet, the breath has to pass before it reaches the 
outer air. If, while the breath passes the vocal 
chords, these elastic /aminw are made to vibrate 
periodically, we sing, and the number of the vibra- 
tions determines the pitch of our voice, but it has 
nothing to do with its timbre, i.e. its vowel. We 
may vary the pitch of our voice, without changing 
its vocal timbre. What we call vowels are neither 
more nor less than the qualities, or colours, or 
timbres of our voice, and these are determined by the 
form, not by the number, of the vibrations, this form 
being determined by the form of the buccal tubes. 


110 CHAPTER III. 


This had, to a certain extent, been anticipated by 
Professor Wheatstone in his critique’ on Professor 
Willis’s ingenious experiments, but it has now been 
rendered quite evident by the researches of Professor 
Helmholtz. It is, of course, impossible to watch the 
form of these vibrations by means of a vibration 
microscope, but it is possible to analyse them by 
means of resounding tubes, like those before de- 
scribed; and thus to discover in them what, as we 
saw, is homologous with the form of vibration, viz. 
the presence and*absence of certain harmonics. Ifa 
man sings the same note on different vowels, the 
harmonics which answer to our resounding tubes 
vary as they would vary if the same note was played 
on different instruments, such as the violin, the flute, or 
the clarionet. In order to remove all uncertainty, 
Professor Helmholtz simply inverted the experiment. 
He took a number of tuning-forks, each furnished 
with a resonance box. By advancing or withdrawing 
this box he could impart to their primary tones various 
degrees of strength, and extinguish their secondary 
tones altogether. He tuned them so as to produce 
a series of tones answering to the harmonies of the 
deepest tuning-fork. He then made these tuning- 
forks vibrate simultaneously by means of a galvanic 
battery, and by combining the harmonics, which he 
had first discovered in each vowel by means of the 
sounding tubes, he sueceeded in reproducing _arti- 
ficially exactly the same vowels.? 

We know now what vowels are made of. They 


1 London and Westminster Review, Oct. 1837, pp. 34, 37. 
2 Le. p, 188, 


ee Se eee 


THE ALPHABET. ig a) 


are produced by various forms imparted to the voice, 
or to the air which is made to vibrate in its passage 
through the vocal chords. They vary like the 
timbre of different instruments, and we in reality 
change the instruments on which we speak when we 
modify the buccal tubes in order to pronounce 4@, @, 2, 
o, w (the vowels to be pronounced as in Italian or in 
Spanish), 

Is it possible, then, to produce a vowel, to evoke a 
certain timbre of our mouth, without giving at the 
same time to each vowel a certain musical pitch? 
This question has been frequently discussed. For a 
long time it was taken for granted that vowels could 
not be uttered without pitch. Yet, if a vowel was 
whispered, it was easy to see that the vocal chords 
were not vibrating, as they are when we sing, and that 
they began to vibrate only when the whispered vowel 
was changed into a voiced vowel. J. Miiller proposed 
a compromise. He admitted that the vowels might 
be uttered as mutes, and without any definite tone 
from the vocal chords, but he maintained that these 
mute vowels were formed in the glottis by the air 
passing the non-sonant chords. 

This view,! though in the main correct, has been 
somewhat modified by later observations, which have 
shown that in whispering the vocal chords are drawn 
together, while at the same time the back part of the 
glottis between the arytenoid cartilages remains open, 
assuming the form of a triangle. The breath passing 


' Funke, Handbuch der Physiologie, p. 678. Different views of Willis 
and Briicke, p. 678. 


* Helmholtz, p. 171. Professor Czermak remarks, that the same effect 


Wi. CHAPTER III. 


through this aperture may produce imperfect vibra- 
tions, and these imperfect vibrations would produce 
the muffled tone that accompanies whispered vowels. 
In cases of aphonia, where the vocal chords cannot 
be made to vibrate freely, it is still possible to pro- 
nounce the different vowels, and the vox clandestina, 
though a mere whisper, is able to rise and to fall. 
Though it is true, therefore, that the vowels can be 
pronounced without the definite pitch of the perfect 
voice, it is still held by high authorities, though de- 
nied by others equally high, that, even in whispered 
vowels, some kind of pitch may be distinguished ; 
nay, that there is a pitch peculiar to each vowel, 
whether voiced or whispered. This was first pointed 
out by Professor Donders, and afterwards corrected 
and confirmed by Professor Helmholtz.2 We can best 
perceive this if we pronounce a whispered ii, and then 
allow it gradually to become a whistling, in which 
case we shall always get the same tone; a most useful 
discovery as a substitute for a tuning-fork.? It will 
be necessary, I think, to treat these indications of 
musical pitch in whispered vowels as imperfect tones, 
that is to say, as noises approaching to tones, or as 
irregular vibrations, nearly, yet not quite, changed 
into regular or isochronous vibrations; though the 
exact limit where a noise ends and tone begins has, 


may be and is produced by the larynx assuming different other conforma- 
tions. ‘ Uber den Spiritus asper,’ p. 7. See, however, the same author’s 
remarks in his Physiologische Vortriige, 1869, p. 101. 

* Sir William Thomson, for instance, denies this. 

2 l.c. p. 172. That there is some connection between the quality 
and the pitch of vowels is also seen from the fact, that very high pitch 
is incompatible with the quality of the vowels wand o. 

* Czermak, Physiologische Vortrige, p. 118. 


THE ALPHABET. 1138 


as far as I can see, not yet been determined by any 
philosopher,’ and the subject requires further careful 
consideration. 

Vowels in all their varieties are really infinite in 
number. Yet, for practical purposes, certain typical 
vowels, each with a large margin for dialectic variety, 
have been fixed upon in all languages, and these we 
shall now proceed to examine. We cannot take any 
account of the endless dialectic or local or even per- 
sonal variations that take place in the pronunciation 
of vowels, because, however interesting for special 
purposes, they are of no importance for the elucida- 
tion of the general principles of phonetics, with which 
alone we are here concerned. How far the subdi- 
vision of the sounds of the alphabet can be carried may 
be seen, for instance, in Mr. A. J. Ellis’s Palewotypic 
Alphabet, which contains about 270 signs for as many 
different sounds. When the sounds of a spoken lan- 
guage are submitted to so minute an analysis, it is 
not surprising that there should be so much variety 
of opinion between different authorities, and that 
the same letter should be described in the most 
divergent ways. Different elocutionists persuade 
themselves that there is a difference between the w 
in French dune and the % in German iiber, between 
the ew in French pew and the 6 in Goethe, and yet 
that the 6 in the German (otter, is the same as the w 
in gutter ! 

But though the Science of Language declines to re- 
cognise any but dynamic or functional distinctions of 
vowels and consonants, that is, any distinctions except 


* See Briicke, Grundziige, p. 16. 
1 I 


114 CHAPTER III. 


those which are connected with a real change of 
meaning, it will be useful to the scholar also to learn 
to what perfection the elocutionist has brought the 
minute analysis of spoken sounds. It is true that for 
his own purposes the student of Comparative Philology 
must always keep before his eyes the system of the 
typical sounds of any family of speech, however 
much they may be hidden behind the ever-changing 
play of dialect. But for this very purpose, for the 
study of dialects, and more particularly for the study 
of dialects that have not yet been reduced to writing, 
a knowledge of such systems as that of Mr. Melville 
Bell will prove extremely useful, and deserves more 
attention than it has hitherto received. Mr. Melville 
Bell complains that there is no representative of 
‘Visible Speech’ in England. But surely both Mr. 
Ellis and Mr. Sweet have been most energetic apostles 
of that system, though, whether rightly or wrongly, 
they may occasionally have deviated from the opinions 
of its author. I cannot do more here than give a slight 
abstract of ‘ Visible Speech, and must refer for fuller 
information to Mr. Bell’s own publications. 


Mr. Melville Bell’s System of Phonetics. 

Mr. Melville Bell in his latest works! divides all 
speech-elements into three classes :— 

(1) those produced by vocalised breath or voice,— 
vowels and voiced consonants ; 

(2) those produced by unvocalised breath,—whis- 
pered vowels and breath consonants ; 

(3) those produced by the mouth alone,—percussions. 


1 University Lectures on Phonetics, 1887, p. 59. Visible Speech 
and Vocal Physiology, 1889. 


THE ALPHABET. 115 


These speech-elements require for their production, 

(1) the lungs, to supply breath ; 

(2) the glottis, to change breath into voice ; 

(3) the pharynx, to compress it ; 

(4) the tongue and lips, to parcel it; and 

(5) the cavities of pharynx, mouth, and nose, to 
mould it. 

The sounds produced by voice are the vowels and 
the voiced consonants. 

The sounds produced by breath are the vowels, 
if whispered, and the breath consonants. 

The sounds produced by the mouth alone, without 
either voice or breath, are the percussions, as heard 
in p, t, k, if not preceded or followed by breath. 

Tones, as described by Mr. Melville Bell, are turns 
of the voice as it rises and falls in speaking, commonly 
called cantilena. 

Glides (Ubergangslaute) are produced by the transi- 
tion from one organic position to another. Thus in 
ai-ry, there is a voice glide between the az and the +. 

If the top of the soft palate is slightly depressed 
and the nasal passage uncovered, all vowels become 
nasalised. 

Vowels. 

Mr. Melville Bell next gives a list of all possible 
vowel sounds, though he admits that several of them 
never occur in the languages known to us. 

Taking the top of the mouth as an arch, he shows 
that the tongue may take an equally high position 
close to the front, the top, or the back of the arch. This 
gives us the three high vowels, one in front, as in bee, 

jh! 


116 CHAPTER IIT. 


an unused vowel at the back (00 delabialised),! and 
one between the two, called mixed, as in church, 
pronounced in American fashion. 

Each of these three vowels can be pronounced in 
three different ways. 

In pronouncing ee, we keep the tip of the tongue 
high, facing the front of the palate. If the front cavity 
is enlarged by gradually lowering the tongue, we get 
the vowel a as in‘ale, and lastly e as in ell. These 
three vowels are called High, Mid, and Low Front 
vowels. 

Taking the High Back vowel (which is not used) 
as our starting-point, we can modify it by enlarging 
the back cavity by lowering the tongue. We then get 
the three High, Mid, and Low Back vowels, described 
as delabialised oo, 6, and aw. 

Taking the High Mixed vowel as our starting-point, 
we can modify it by enlarging the mouth cavity by 
lowering the tongue. We then get the three High, 
Mid, and Low Mixed vowels, as heard in church 
(American), in alté? (German e), and pénny (Cockney 
huckster). 

Each of the nine vowels hitherto described can be 
modified if, in pronouncing them, we round our lips. 
Here the High vowels have a narrow, the Low a 
broad, the Mid, an intermediate labial aperture. If 
we pronounce the High Front ee of dee and round the 
lips, we get the German vw. If we pronounce the Mid 
Front a of ale, and round the lips, we get the French 


1 To delabialise is meant for removing the action of the lips from such 
vowels as 00, 0, and aw. * 

2 T put the accent on the vowel, if there is any doubt as to which vowel 
is meant. 


THE ALPHABET. GLE 


w. If we pronounce the Low Front e of eld, and round 
the lips, we get the French eu. 

Applying the same process to the High, Mid, and 
Low Back vowels, we get the vowels 00, 0, and aw. 
It was in fact by delabialising these vowels that the 
three primary Back vowels were discovered, though 
they are seldom used. 

Thirdly, by applying the same process of rounding 
to the Mixed vowels, we get a blending of 00 with i, 
of 6 with w (French), and of aw with ew (French). 
The first sound is heard in look, as pronounced in the 
North of [veland ; the second in the French homme, 
and the third in the initial element of the Irish diph- 
thongal sound of J, in J mind. 

We have now eighteen possible vowels. Every one 
of these, as Mr. Melville Bell informs us, admits of 
what he calls widening, ora loose and more indefinite 
pronunciation of the primary vowels, the organic 
positions remaining otherwise the-same. The follow- 
ing list will best show the difference between primary 
or narrow, and secondary or wide vowels, as under- 


stood by Mr. M. Bell. 


Secondary 


Primary (narrow). (wide). Primary (narrow). Secondary (wide). 
High-front: eel ill tiber (Germ.) une (Fr.) 
Mid-front: ale alr dai (Fr.) school (Scotch) 
Low-front: end and peu (Fr.) now (Cockney) 
High-mixed : 

church (Am.) the look (N. Ivel.) awful 
Mid-mixed : 

alté (Germ.) sofa homme (FYv.) Sorrow 


Low-mixed : 
zur (Somerset) sir I (Irel.) mirror (Chicago) 


118 : CHAPTER III. 


Secondary 

Primary (narrow). (wide). Primary (narrow). Secondary (wide). 
High-back : 

laogh (Gaelic) —tidn pool pull 
Mid-back: up ask old ore 
Low-back : 

up (Scotch) ah yawn you 

Consonants. 


All consonants are the result of friction, compression, 
or interception of the breath in its passage from the 
lungs through the mouth. 

(1) If the breath-channel is contracted between the 
back of the tongue and the soft palate, we get the 
sound of ch in German nach. 

(2) If the breath-channel is contracted between the 
middle of the tongue and the soft palate, we get the 
sound of ch in German ich, or English hue. 

(3) If the breath-channel is contracted between the 
tip of the tongue and the gum or the front edge of the 
palatal arch, we get the sound of 7, as heard in three 
(Scotch). 

(4) If the breath-channel is contracted between the 
edges of the approximatal lips, we get the sound made 
in blowing to cool. 

(5) If the first of these consonantal sounds is 
modified by the lips, we get the sound ch as heard in 
leuch (laughed) in Scotch. 

(6) If the second sound is modified by the elevation 
of the forepart of the tongue, it is changed to sh. 

(7) If the third sound is modified by the elevation 
of the middle of the tongue, it 1s changed to s. 

(8) If the fourth sound is modified by the retraction 
of the tongue towards the back, the sharp blowing 


THE ALPHABET. 119 


sound is changed into a hollow whistling sound, the 
English wh. 

This gives us eight primitive consonants, all breath- 
consonants. We have only to substitute for breath 
vocalised breath or voice, and that number is doubled. 
This gives us :— 


Breath. Voice. 
Back ch, in nach (Germ.). g, in tage (Germ.). 
Top h, in ich (Germ.). y, Im yen. 
Point r, in three (Scotch). r, before vowel. 
Lip Blowing to cool. v, in wie (Germ.). 
Back mixed ch in leuch (Scotch). g (labialised, Germ.). 
Top mixed _ sh, in she. j (French), je. 
Point mixed s, in see. Zz, In zeal. 
Lip mixed — wh, in which. Ww, in we. 


There are still some consonants in which the breath 
issues, not by a central aperture, but laterally, whether 
on both sides or on one. These are in English :-— 


Breath. Voice. 
1, in else. 1, in ells. 
th, in thin. th, in thine. 
f, in four. Vv, in voice. 


If instead of emitting breath, unvocalised or 
vocalised, through these channels, we shut them 
against the breath or against the voice, we get the 
consonants :— 


Breath. Voice. 
k, in key. @ (hard), gain. 
Sound between k and t. Sound between g and d. 
t, in town. d, in done. 
p, in poet. b, in bone. 


The English nasal consonants ng, a sound between 
ng and n, 2, and m, are formed by shutting the mouth 


120 CHAPTER III. 


passage and emitting breath or voice through the 
nose. The nasal passage is closed when the soft 
palate is lifted, it is opened when the soft palate 
descends. Nasal consonants may be vocal and non- 
vocal. 

This gives us altogether forty-eight consonants. 
To these must, however, be added the h, as represent- 
ing a mere emission of breath, without any friction, 
and the whisper, produced by the narrowing of the 
throat-passage. 

This 1s, no doubt, a very imperfect sketch of Mr. 
Melville Bell’s system. It is particularly so, because 
I could not avail myself of the ingenious alphabet 
which he has framed in order to give a pictorial re- 
presentation to every one of his letters. Still it will 
give an idea both of the strong and the weak points 
of what he calls Visible Speech. The weak points Mr. 
Melville Bell is himself the first to admit. Both vowels 
and consonants admit in reality of so many minute 
variations that no system of notation can ever do 
Justice to them. The strength of the system consists 
in the classification of vowels and consonants, in 
their definition and their localisation. Critics eon- 
tend that his classification and subdivision of vowels 
and consonants has either been carried too far or not 
far enough. We saw that several of his letters were 
admitted by Mr. Melville Bell himself to be useless for 
spoken languages, as far as we know them, and it is 
certainly a fact that other elocutionists differ from Mr. 
Melville Bell in assigning to each of his categories the 
sounds known to us in English, French, and German. 
These critics may be, as Mr. Melville Bell suggests, in- 


—-. 


THE ALPHABET. AbD 


capable and prejudiced, still Mr. Sweet, Professor Sie- 
vers, Dr. Vietor, Dr. Paul Passy and others can hardly 
be classed as such. Indeed, on several points I feel 
inclined to agree with them. 

For practical purposes, more particularly for writ- 
ing down spoken dialects and languages not yet 
reduced to writing, any one of these systems will no 
doubt prove very useful. I have confined myself to 
that of Mr. Bell in its latest form (1887), as the most 
original and the most widely accepted system. 


Image of the Ear and Movement of the Tongue. 


We must not forget that in using any of these 
systems we have to learn not only how to pronounce, 
but likewise how to hear. The ear receives an im- 
pression, and the vocal organs have to make an 
effort to imitate that impression. Nothing is more 
difficult than to hear accurately what is spoken in 
a language which we do not understand. An American 
gentleman, long resident in Constantinople, writes :— 


‘There is only one word in all my letters which I am certain 
(however they may be written) of not having spelt wrong, and 
that is the word bactshtasch, which signifies a present. I have 
heard it so often, and my ear is so accustomed to the sound, 
and my tongue to the pronunciation, that I am now certain [| 
am not wrong the hundredth part of a whisper or a lisp. 
There is no other word in the Turkish so well impressed on my 
mind, and so well remembered. Whatever else I have written, 
bachshtasch ! my earliest acquaintance in the Turkish language 
I shall never forget.’ 


' The word intended is Bakhshish. 

2 Constantinople and its Environs, by an American long resident, 
New York, 1835, vol. ii, p. 151; quoted in Marsh, Lectures, second 
series, p. 87. 


1A) CHAPTER III. 


Yet even the best elocutionists are sometimes liable 
to strange illusions, and the sounds which they have 
correctly defined before uttering them, are by no means 
always the same, when uttered. 

The Chinese word which by French scholars is 
generally represented as eul, is rendered by different 
authorities 61, eulh, eull, vl, rll, urhl, rhl. It is 
curious that the same word is sounded at Canton 7, in 
Annam 72, in Japan 17.1 

Well do I remember how long it took before I 
could hear that and was not ant, that of was ov, that 
tongue was twng. 

If one has once heard correctly, the effort of imita- 
tion is much less difficult. 

Nay, even in speaking our own language, our pro- 
nunciation is constantly varying, and if a man is asked 
to pronounce a word a second time, so that we may hear 
it better, he almost invariably pronounces it differently. 

If each letter is kept between the narrow limits 
assigned to it, much will have been gained, but we 
shall never get a really scientific classification of the 
sounds of the human voice till we can measure them, 
as we measure heat, light, and now electricity also. 

Helmholtz has shown how vowels may be analysed 
and reproduced according to their analysis. It is not 
impossible that the phonograph may in time supply 
students of acoustics with the means of measuring 
every shade of sound produced on the revolving cylin- 
der by the human voice. There are the impressions 
made by the point set to vibrate by the speaking voice. 
Why cannot these impressions be magnified so as to 

* Léon de Rosny, La Cochinehine, p. 294. 


THE ALPHABET. 123 


become really Visible Speech, and to submit to actual 
measurement? Barlow’s experiments seem to me 
to point the way, but it is not for me to say more 
on such a subject. | 

The actual Alphabet. 

We now return to the humbler task of describing 
the vowels and consonants with which the student of 
the Science of Language has chiefly to deal. Their 
system is, no doubt, less perfect than the purely 
physiological system elaborated by Mr. Melville Bell. 
But we must not forget that they answer the purpose 
for which they were intended, inasmuch as the prin- 
cipal languages of the world have been able with that 
small array of vowels and consonants to express all 
they had tosay. They must be looked upon as typical 
sounds only, each admitting of a broad margin, i. e. of 
a considerable dialectic variety. The only question is 
with how many, or with how few of such typical sounds 
the work of language can be carried on. No one can 
fail to see, for instance, that the & has a different 
place of contact, as pronounced in king, care, car, coal, 
cool, and caw. In a physiological alphabet, therefore, 
we ought properly to have six /’s, nay even more, if 
we watch the k as followed by different consonants, 
asin ks, kl, kra. But for our own purposes one / is 
sufficient, and if we have to mark dynamic differences 
in the k, they do not concern its pronunciation, but 
rather its liability to labialisation in certain languages, 
a peculiarity unrecognised in any physiological al- 
phabet. 

The Sanskrit short a is pronounced very differently 
even by educated natives in different parts of India, 


124, ; CHAPTER ITI. 


but we should always have to write it by a, even if 
pronounced like 6 or % Dynamically, however, 
Sanskrit @ represents three sounds, @, %, and 0, and 
though Sanskrit has dispensed with this threefold 
dialectic variety for the purpose of grammatical 
distinctions, as, for instance, in Greek réuve, érapor, 
and téwos, the scholar finds it useful to mark that 
latent distinction in the Sanskrit vowel a, though no 
human ear could ever detect it. 

I still think that for a right appreciation of the 
letters used in the Aryan languages nothing can 
exceed the usefulness of the old Indian Pratisikhyas, 
particularly that of the Rig-veda. Even the Semitic 
alphabet, though of a very different character, can to 
a great extent be accommodated within the broad 
categories established by the ancient phoneticians of 
India. 

All that I shall attempt here is to give diagrams of 
the position of the vocal organs required for the 
utterance of the principal vowels and consonants. 
These diagrams are very rough, and do not pretend to 
give more than an approximative picture. ‘For didac- 
tic purposes,’ as Professor Haeckel remarks,! ‘simple 
schematic figures are far more useful and instructive 
than pictures which preserve the greatest faithfulness 
to nature and are carried out with the greatest exacti- 
tude.’ Such minutely exact pictures may be seen, 
however, in Mr. Norman W. Kingsley’s article, [dlus- 
trations of the Articulation of the Tongue, in Techmer’s 
Zeitschrift, vol. ili. pp. 225-248. They are simply 


' Haeckel, Ziele und Wege, p. 37. 


THE ALPHABET. 125 


copies taken by a very ingenious process of the interior 
of the mouth while engaged in pronouncing certain 
vowels and consonants. But the author knows too well 
in how many different ways the same sound may be 
produced by different individuals, nay by the same 
individual, to wish us to accept these pictures as more 
than approximative. ‘It is not supposable, he 
writes, ‘that all persons in making the same sound 
place the active accessory organs—the tongue, palate, 
&e.—in the same identical position. Variations to 
a greater or less extent can be observed in every 
one. Exactly the same resonating cavity in shape is 
not likely to exist in any two mouths. With the 
fixed portion of any buccal cavity differing somewhat 
in form from every other, the changeable portions, 
such as the tongue and palate, adapt themselves to 
circumstances and produce a resonating cavity of the 
same clang-character. The variations in the position 
of the articulating organs as seen in different persons 
in producing the same sound are then understood. 
So long as the integrity of the accessory organs 1s 
preserved, a resonating cavity of like clang-character 
can be formed.’ 


Vowels. 


1. In pronouncing w we round the lips and draw 
down the tongue so that the cavity of the mouth 
assumes the shape of a bottle without a neck. Such 
bottles give the deepest notes, and so does the 
vowel uw. According to Helmholtz its inherent tone 
1S F. 


126 CHAPTER III. 


EXAMPLES : ! 


Open syllable, long, who; Fr. 


ou; Germ. du. 


Open syllable, short fruttion ; 
Fr. owir; Germ. zuriick. 


Closed syllable, long, pool; Fr. 
poule ; Germ. Stuhl. 


Closed syllable, short, pull; Fr. 
pour; Germ. bunt. 


2. If the lips be opened somewhat wider, and the 
tongue somewhat raised, we hear the sound of o. Its 
pitch, according to Helmholtz, is B’ flat. 


Fig. 6. 


EXAMPLES: 


Open syllable, long, ago; Fr. 
beau; Germ. Ofen. 


Open syllable, short, zoology; Fr. 
zoologie; Germ. Zoologie. 
Closed syllable, long, bone; Fr. 


cone; Germ. Mond. 


Closed syllable, short, soft; Fr. 
bol; Germ. fort. 


' I give instances of short and long vowels, both in open and closed 
syllables (i.e, not followed or followed by consonants), because, in English 


THE ALPHABET. 1 


3. If the lips are less rounded, and the tongue 
somewhat depressed, we hear the sound of a. 


Fico. 7 


EXAMPLES: 


Open syllable, long, Arzgust 
(subs.); Fr. deest;' Germ. 
deest. 


Open sylable,short,augist (adj.); 
Fr. deest; Germ. deest. 


Closed syllable, long, nought; Fr. 
deest ; Germ. deest. 


Closed syllable, short, what ; 
Fr. deest ; Germ. ceest. 


4. If the lips are wide open, and the tongue in its 
natural flat position, we hear the sound of a. In- 
herent pitch according to Helmholtz, B” flat. This 
seems the most natural position of the mouth in sing- 
ing; yet for the higher notes singers prefer the vowels 
e and 7, and they find it difficult to pronounce «@ 
and w on the highest.’ 


particularly, hardly any vowels pair when free or stopped. On the 
qualitative, and not only quantitative, difference between long and short 
vowels, see Briicke, J. c. p. 24, seq. and R. von Raumer. 

1 A sound similar to this is said to exist in the dialect of Orleans and 
the centre of France. 

? Briicke, p. 13. 


128 CHAPTER III. 


Fig. 8. 


EXAMPLES: 


Open syllable, long, mamd@; Fr. 
bas; Germ. da. 


Open syllable, short, pépd ;! Fr. 
rabat; Germ. dabei. 
Closed syllable, long, pass; Fr. 


Basle; Germ. lahm. 


Closed syllable, short, deest; 
Fr. bal; Germ. Lamm. 


yt 


5. If the lips are fairly open, and the back of the 
tongue raised towards the palate, the larynx being 


EXAMPLES : 


Open syllable, long, hay ; Fr, 
né; Germ. geh. 


Open syllable, short, derial; Fr. 
légal ; Germ. Gebet. 

Closed syllable, long, lake; 
Germ. geht. 


Closed syllable, short, debt; Fr. 
dette; Germ. Fett. 


* Ihave given papd as an instance of the short pure a in English, 
but even in this word children soon learn to pronounce pupaw instead 
of papd. The fact is that there is no short pure a in English, either in 
open or in closed syllables, and even in long syllables the pronunciation 
of the @ is seldom quite pure. According to the peculiarities of local 


THE ALPHABET. 129 


raised at the same time, we hear the sound of e. The 
long @is seldom quite pure in English, and particu- 
larly in singing we clearly hear a furtive 7 at the end 
of this vowel, day sounding like dé%. The long o in 
the same manner is frequently followed by a short %, 
no sounding like né-%. The buccal tube resembles a 
bottle with a narrow neck. The natural pitch of ¢ is 
B’”’ flat or ¥’. 

6. If we raise the tongue higher still, and narrow 
the lips, we hear the sound of 2. The buccal tube 
represents a bottle with a very narrow neck of no 
more than six centimétres from palate to lips. Such 
a bottle would answer to oc”. The natural pitch of 7 


t/t) 


is said to be D’”’. 


EXAMPLES: 


Open syllable, long, he; Fr. vie; 
Germ. sve. 


Open syllable, short, pithy; Fr. 
vitesse ; Germ. Sibirien. 


Closed syllable, long, been; Fr. 
pire; Germ. mir. 


Closed syllable, short, been, pro- 
nounced bin; Fr. mirroir; 
Germ. mit. 


7. There is, besides, the most troublesome of all 
vowels, the neutral vowel, sometimes called Uvrvocal, 


dialects we sometimes hear farm pronounced like fawirm, sometimes 
like fairm. The true pronunciation ofthe Italian @matd must be learnt 
in Italy. 


LY, K 


130 CHAPTER ITI. 


better Unvocal. Professor Willis defines it as the 
natural vowel of the reed, Mr. Ellis as the voice 
in its least modified form. Some people hear it 
everywhere, others imagine they can distinguish 
various shades of it. If I could trust my own ear, 
I should say that this vowel was always pronounced 
with non-sonant or whispered breath; that it is in 
fact a whispered, not a voiced, vowel. We know it 
best in short closed syllables, such as but, dust, &e. 
_It is supposed to be long in absurd. Sir John 
Herschel hears but one and the same sound in spurt, 
assert, bird, virtue, dove, oven, double, blood. Sheridan 
and Smart imagine they can distinguish between the 
vowels heard in bird and work, in whirl’d and world. 
There is no doubt that in English unaccented syl- 
lables have a strong tendency towards it, e.g. 
against, ided, village, suppér, fully, muttén. Town 
sinks to tun or tw in Paddington, ford to furd or 
frd in Oxford; and though some of these pronun- 
ciations may still be considered as vulgar, they are 
nevertheless real. 

These are the principal vowels, and there are few 
languages in which they do not occur. But we have 
only to look to English, French, and German in order 
to perceive that there are many varieties of vocal 
sound besides these. There is the French wu, the Ger- 
man 7d, which lies between 7 and w;? asin French, lu, 
pur, sur; in German, friih, fiir, Stid, Stinde. Professor 
Helmholtz has fixed the natural pitch of % as a”. 


1 Ellis, § 29, n, 7,1, and m are vocalic. 
* “While the tongue gets ready to pronounce 7, the lips assume the 
position required for w,’—Du Bois-Reymond, Kadmus, p. 150. 


THE ALPHABET. AN 3 j 


There is the French ew, the German 6, which lies be- 
tween.e and o, as in French pew, hewreua, peur, neuf ; 
German Konig, enport, or short in Bécke.! Professor 
Helmholtz has fixed the natural pitch of 6 as c’”” sharp. 

There is d@ as heard in bear, in German Védter, in 
French prétre, in Italian erba. Its natural pitch is 
Gat OreD: *. 

Several vowels as pronounced in English in un- 
accented syllables are what Briicke calls imperfect 
vowels. They have been ranged under their corre- 
sponding typical sounds, but they have a phonetic 
character of their own. 

Thus there is the peculiar short @ in closed syl- 
lables in English, such as hat, happy, man. It may 
be heard lengthened in the affected pronunciation of 
half. 

There is the peculiar short 2, as heard in the Eng- 
lish happy, reality, hit, knit. 

There is the short e in closed syllables, such as 
heard in English debt, bed, men, which if lengthened 
comes very near to the German @ in Védter, and the 
French ¢ in prétre, or é in pére, not quite the English 
there. | 

Lastly, there are the diphthongs, as heard in English 
by, boy, bow, which arise when, instead of pronouncing 
one vowel immediately after another with two efforts 
of the voice, we produce a sound during the change 


* The German 6, if shortened, seems to dwindle down to the neutral 
vowel, e.g. Ofen, ovens, but éffnen, to open. See Du Bois-Reymond, 
Kadmus, p. 173. With a little practice, however, we can perceive a 
difference between the vowel win English hut, and the vowel 6 in Ger- 
man Hérner ; and it is easy to distinguish between the German Gétter 
and the English gutter. 


Kee 


132 CHAPTER III. 


from one position to the other that would be required 
for each vowel. If we change the « into the 7 position 
and pronounce a vowel, we hear ai as in aisle, A 
singer who has to sing I on a long note will often 
end by singing the Italian 7. If we change the a into 
the w position and pronounce a vowel, we hear aw, as 
in how. Here, too, we find many varieties, such as 
i, a1, ei, varying in different languages, nay in the 
dialects of one and the same language. 

This may seem a long and tedious list, though it is, in 
fact, butavery roughsketch,and I must refertothe works 
of Mr. Melville Bell, Ellis, and others, for many minute 
details in the chromatic scale of the vowels. Though 
the tube of the mouth, as modified by the tongue and 
the lips, is the principal determinant in the production 
of vowels, yet there are other agencies at work, the 
velum pendulum, the posterior wall of the pharynz, the 
greater or less elevation of the laryna, all contributing 
at times to modify the cavity of the throat. It is 
said that in pronouncing the high vowels, the bones of 
the skull participate in the vibration,! and it has been 
proved by irrefragable evidence that the velwm pen- 
dulwm is of very essential importance in the pronun- 
ciation of all vowels. Thus Professor Czermak,? by 
introducing a probe through the nose into the cavity 
of the pharynx, felt distinctly that the position of the 
velum was changed with each vowel; that it was 
lowest for a, and rose successively with e, 0, wu, 4, 
reaching its highest point with 7. 

' Briicke, p. 16. 


* Sitzungsberichte der k. i. Akademie zu Wien (mathemat. natur- 
wissenschaftliche Classe), xxiv. p.5. Physiologische Vortrége, p. 114. 


THE ALPHABET, 1383 


He likewise proved that the cavity of the nose was 
more or less firmly closed during the pronunciation of 
certain vowels. By introducing water into the nose 
he found that while he pronounced 7, wu, 0, the water 
would remain in the nose, but that it would pass into 
the fauces when he came to e, and still more when 
he uttered a.1 These two vowels, a and e, were the - 
only vowels which Leblane,? a young man whose 
larynx was completely closed, failed to pronounce. 


Nasal Vowels. 

If, instead of emitting the vowel sound freely 
through the mouth, we allow the velum pendulum 
to drop and the air to vibrate through the cavities 
which connect the nose with the pharynx, we hear 
the nasal vowels* so common in French, as wn, on, 
mm, an. It is not necessary that the air should 
actually pass through the nose; on the contrary, 
we may shut the nose, and thus increase the nasal 
twang. The only requisite is the removal of the 
velum, which, in ordinary vowels, covers the choanw 
more or less completely.‘ 


Consonants. 
There is no reason why languages should not have 
been entirely formed of vowels. There are words 
consisting of vowels only, such as Latin ¢o, I go; ea, 


1 Funke, J. c. p. 676. 

* Bindseil, Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Sprachlehre, 
1838, p. 212. 

% Briicke, p. 27. 

* The different degrees of this closure were tested by the experiment 
of Prof. Czermak with a metal looking-glass applied to the nostrils 
during the pronunciation of pure and nasal vowels. Sitzwngsberichte 
der Wiener Akademie, xxviii. p. 575, xxix. p. 174. 


134 CHAPTER III. 


she; eoa, eastern; the Greek Gideis (jiders, with high 
banks), but for its final s; the Hawaian hooiaioai, 
to testify, but for its initial breathing. Yet these 
very words show how unpleasant the effect of such 
a language would have been. Something else was 
wanted to supply the bones of language, namely, the 
consonants. Consonants are called in Sanskrit 
vyaiigana, which means ‘rendering distinct or mani- 
fest, while the vowels are called svara, sounds, from 
the same root which yielded suswrrus in Latin. 

As scholars are always fond of establishing general 
theories, however scanty the evidence at their dis- 
posal, we need not wonder that languages like the 
Hawaian, in which the vowels predominate to a very 
considerable extent, should on that very ground have 
been represented as primitive languages. It was 
readily supposed that the general progress of lan- 
guage was from the slightly articulated to the 
strongly articulated; and that the fewer the conso- 
nants, the older the language. Yet we have only to 
compare the Hawaian with other Polynesian lan- 
guages in order to see how erroneous this view would 
be. In these cognate languages the consonantal 
skeleton exists, and it is quite clear that these con- 
sonants were dropped in Hawaian. Consonants are 
much more apt to drop than to spring up. Dean 
Ramsay in his Reminiscences records a conversation 
between two Scotchmen, a shopman and a customer, 
relating to a plaid hanging at the shop- door. It 
consists entirely of vowels. 


Customer (inquiring the material) : Oo ? (wool). 
Shopman: Ay, 00 (yes, wool). 


THE ALPHABET. 135 


Customer: A’ 00 ? (all wool). 

Shopman : Ay, a’ 00 (yes, all wool). 
Customer : A’ ae 00 ? (all same wool). 
Shopman : Ay, a’ ae 00 (yes, all same wool). 


Here we know that the consonants existed, but 
were dropt. Prof. Buschmann expresses the same 
opinion with regard to the Polynesian languages: 
‘Mes recherches m’ont conduit 4 la conviction, que 
cet état de pauvreté phonique polynésienne n'est pas 
tant l'état naturel d'une langue prise & sa naissance, 
quune détérioration du type vigoureux des langues 
malaies occidentales, amenée par un peuple qui a peu 
de disposition pour varier les sons.’ The very name 
of Havai, or more correctly Hawaz’i, confirms this 
view. It is pronounced 


in the Samoan dialect, Saval’i 
Tahitian, Havai’1 
Rarotongan, Avaiki 
Nukuhivan, Havaiki 
New Zealand, Hawaiki 


from which the original form may be inferred to have 
been Savaiki.? 

All consonants fall under the category of noises, 
and there are certain noises that could hardly be 
avoided even in a language which was meant to con- 
sist of vowels only. If we watch any musical instru- 
ments, we can easily perceive that their sounds are 
always preceded by certain noises, arising from the 
first impulses imparted to the air before it can pro- 
duce really musical sensations. We hear the puffing 

1 Buschmann, Jles Marg. p. 36,59. Pott, Htymologische Forschungen, 
ss HAR ory fetal s 


136 CHAPTER III. 


and panting of the siren, the scratching of the violin, 
the hammering of the pianoforte, the spitting of the 
flute. The same in speaking. If we send out our 
breath, intending it to be vocalised, we often hear 
the rushing out, the initial impulse produced by 
the inner air as it reaches the outer. 


Breathings. 


If we breathe freely, the glottis is wide open,’ 
and the breath emitted can be distinctly heard. Mere 
breathing, however, is not yet our h, or the spiritus 
usper, An intention is required to change mere 
breathing into 1; the velum pendulum has to assume 
its proper position, the larynx is stiffened, the glottis 
narrowed * in order to produce an accumulation and 
intensification of the breath; this breath is then 
jerked out by the action of the abdominal muscles. 
This is the / in its purest state, the Greek spiritus 
asper, free, as yet, from any degree of hoarseness that 
may be imparted to it by subsequent barriers. These 
barriers are formed by narrowing different portions 
of the larynx or the throat, and they have given rise, 
particularly in the Semitic languages and in some 
German dialects, to a great variety of guttural breath- 
ings which, even with the help of the laryngoscope, it 

' Czermak, Physiologische Untersuchungen mit Garcia’s Kehlkopf- 
spregel, Sitzungsberichte der k.k. Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 
Xxxix. 1858, p. 563. 

* Czermak, Uber den Spiritus asper und lenis. Sonder-Abdruck aus 
dem LIT. Bande der Sitzungsberichte der kats. Akad. der Wissenschaften 
(December 7, 1865). Though Professor Ozermak is right in saying that 
the glottis is narrowed, if compared with its shape in men breathing, yet 


it is equally correct to say that the glottis for 4 is wide open as compared 
with its aperture in the pronunciation of other letters. 


THE ALPHABET. iba 


is difficult accurately to analyse or to describe. With 
regard to dead languages, as for instance the ancient 
Greek, it is a hopeless task to attempt to determine 
the exact formation of their true guttural breathings. 
But, without wishing to commit myself to any opinion 
as to the exact degree of harshness imparted by the 
ancient Greeks to their mveiua dacv, it will be con- 
venient to retain the name of spiritus asper for the 
_ least modified form of the guttural breathing. 

Now it is clearly possible, while the breath is thus 
passing through the more or less compressed throat, 
to bring the vocal chords near to each other, so that 
the breath in passing should produce a kind of friction 
or imperfect vibration. As the (‘), the spiritus asper, 
described before, is the type of all the modifications 
of non-sonant breath, this letter would be the type 
of all the modifications of sonant breath, or of ex- 
haled voice. The Sanskrit h must come very near 
to it, for it is described as a breath or wind, like s, 
but at the same time as sonant. As I wish to retain 
for the non-sonant breath, in its purest form, the 
name of spiritus usper, I should wish to assign to the 
typical form of sonant breath the name of spiritus 
lenis, without, however, committing myself to any 
opinion as to the exact pronunciation of mveipa Widdy 
in different parts of Greece, or at different periods in 
the history of the Greek languages.! 


* Professor Czermak, in trying to define the nature of the TVEULA 
yiAov in Greek, explains it as ‘the explosive sound at the beginning of 
a vowel where the tone breaks forth, having for its only, and often 
hardly perceptible, extraneous admixture, the peculiar acoustic pheno- 
menon of the first explosive opening of the glottis, appearing other- 
wise in its full strength and purity.’ Professor Czermak, in fact, seems 


138 CHAPTER III. 


We often hear the spiritus lenis, like a slight 
bubble, if we listen to the pronunciation of any in1- 


to understand by mvedpua YAdv the coup de la glotte, the sound produced 
by the explosive contact of the two sides of the glottis. If that had 
been the Greek mvedpa yiAdv, the name would not have been chosen very 
happily, for the coup de la glotte is not the breath itself, the mvevya, but 
the sound produced by a check imposed upon the sonant breath, The 
adjective yAdv applied to mvedpa does by no means prove, as Pro- 
fessor Czermak imagines, that the mvedpua yAdv must have been formed, 
like the dpwva yAa, by an explosive opening of a complete contact. 
To a Greek such an idea had never occurred, and would certainly not have 
been conveyed by the adjective yiAdv. The adjective Ady is no doubt 
opposed to Sacv, but, aceording to the best authorities, the dpwva dacea 
were themselves pronounced originally by an explosive opening of a 
previous complete contact, @ being originally ph and not f. The fact 
is that the Greek classification of letters, and, in consequence, their 
terminology, were of the vaguest kind. They divided the dpwva or 
mutes into dacéa, i. e. rough letters, and into wad, i. e. letters that were 
without that roughness. The péoa, or medie, were supposed to stand 
between the two, but, if pressed on the subject, the Greeks would most 
likely have admitted that the péca, too, were free from the roughness of the 
5acéa, and, in that sense,yAd. When they gave to mvevyua or breath, too, 
the name of dacv, all they meant to indicate by it was the roughness of 
the breathing, and this the Romans rendered very properly by spiritus 
asper. In mvedpa WAdy, therefore, we have really no more than a nega- 
tive definition of another breath which is free from roughness, and this 
the Romans understood so well that they did not translate mvedpa prov 
by spiritus tenuis, but by spirituslenis. The adjective yAor is likewise 
used in a merely negative sense in é YiAdy and d yiAdv. The natural 
meaning, therefore, of this term would seem to be a breath which is not 
rough, and in this sense I apply it to the sonant breath as just described. 
If the spiritus lenis in Greek had been what Professor Czermak asserts 
it was, it is strange that it should not have been ranged among the agwva 
wird. But these are questions which, at this distance of time, it is im- 
possible to answer positively. What is of importance to us is this, 
that it is possible to define the following four letters, the non-sonant 
glottal breath, the sonant glottal breath, the glottal non-sonant check, 
and the glottal sonant check. But though we can define these four 
letters, the three last are apt to run into each other in actual use. Nor 
is this to be wondered at, considering that in the glottal series the organs 
which check the breath are the same as those which impart to it its 
sonant nature. The change of simple breath (‘) into simple voice (’) 
implied a check of the forth-rushing breath, which, initially, might 


= , 


THE ALPHABET. 139 


tial vowel, as in old, art, ache, ear, or if we pronounce 
‘my hand, as it is pronounced by vulgar people, 
‘my and.’ According to some physiologists,! and ac- 
cording to nearly all grammarians, this initial noise 
can be so far subdued as to become evanescent, and 
we all imagine that we can pronounce an initial 
vowel quite pure.*? Yet I believe the Greeks were 
right in admitting the spiritus lenis as inherent in 
all initial vowels that have not the spiritus asper ; 
and the laryngoscope clearly shows in all initial 
vowels a sustained narrowing of the vocal chords, 
quite distinct from the narrowing and sudden opening 
that takes place in the pronunciation of the h. 

There is another very important distinction between 
spiritus asper and lenis. It is impossible to sing 
the spiritus asper, that is to say, to make the breath 
which produces it, sonant. If we try to sing ha, the 
voice does not come out till the h is over, We might 
as well try to whistle and to sing at the same 


easily be mistaken for the check that constitutes the explosive tenuis ; 
nor would it be easy, in spite of the most hair-splitting definitions, to 
distinguish the sound of the glottal explosive media from that of the 
glottal sonant breath. Briicke doubts whether the glottal sonant breath 
can be ranged as a distinct letter. ‘Sonant consonants,’ he says (p. 85) 
‘spring from non-sonant consonants simply by means of narrowing the 
glottis till it produces a sound ; and if this is done with the 4, the result 
must be the pure tone of the voice without any additional rustle.’ In 
strict logic this is true, but in actual language we neither get a perfectly 
pure (°),nor a perfectly pure (’), and the slightest trace of hoarseness would 
give to the (°) and to the (’) their peculiar consonantal body. 

1 Briicke, p. 9. 

* Briicke, p, 85.‘ If in pronouncing the spiritus asper the glottis be 
narrowed, we hear the pure tone of the voice without any additional 
noise.’ The noise, however, is quite perceptible, particularly in the vow 
clandestina. | 


140 CHAPTER III. 


time. The reason of thisis clear. If the breath that 
is to produce / is to become a tone, it must be checked 
by the vocal chords, but the very nature of h consists 
in the noise of the breath rushing forth wncehecked 
from the lungs to the outer air. The spiritus lenis, 
on the contrary, can be sounded, because, in pro- 
nouncing it, the breath is checked near the vocal 
chords, and changed to voice. 

The distinction which, with regard to the first 
breathing or spiritus, is commonly called asper and 
lenis, is the same which, in other letters, is known by 
the names of hard and soft, surd and sonant, tenuis 
and media.2 The peculiar character meant to be 
described by these terms, and the manner in which 
it is produced are the same throughout. The authors 
of the Pratisakhyas knew what has been confirmed 
by the laryngoscope, that, in pronouncing what are 
called ¢enues, hard or surd letters, the glottis is open, 
while, in pronouncing the medic, soft or sonant letters, 
the glottis is closed. In the first class of letters, the 
vocal chords are simply neutral; in the second, they 
are so close that, though not set to vibrate periodi- 
cally, they produce a hum, or what has been called a 
fricative noise (Reibungsgerausch). Anticipating the 


* See R. von Raumer, Gesammelte Schriften, p. 371, note. Johannes 
Miiller says, ‘The only continua which is quite mute and cannot be 
accompanied by the tone or the humming of the voice, is the h, the 
aspirate. If one attempts to pronounce the / loud, with the tone of the 
chordz vocales, the humming of the voice is not synchronous with the 
h, but follows it, and the aspiration vanishes as soon as the air is 
changed into tones by the chorde vocales.’ 

* Czermak, Physiologische Vortrdge, p. 120: ‘Die Reibungslaute 
zerfallen genau so wie die Verschlusslaute in weiche oder ténende, bei 
denen das Stimmritzengerausch oder der laute Stimmton mitlautet—und 
in harte oder tonlose, bei denen der Kehlkopf absolut still ist.’ 


THE ALPHABET. 141 


distinction between &, t, p, and g, d, 6, I may quote 
here the description given by Professor Helmholtz 
of the general causes which produce their distinction. 

‘The series of the media, b, d, g, he says, ‘ differs 
from that of the tenues, p, t, k, by this, that for the 
former the glottis is, at the time of consonantal open- 
ing, sufficiently narrowed to enable it to sound, or at 


Fig. 11. Fig. 12. 


\ 
\ 
ON 


YM wp 
AL AALK RC 
SS \ 


eae 
AF fit) COCO TA) 
Cha 


\) ' j ‘| ‘) j 


—(h); e.g. hand. *"—3 eg, 


least to produce the noise of the vow clandestina, or 
whisper, while it is wide open with the tenues,! and 
therefore unable to sound.’ 

‘Medize are therefore accompanied by the tone of 
the voice, and this may even, when they begin a 
syllable, set in a moment before, and when they end 
a syllable, continue a moment after the opening of 
the mouth, because some air may be driven into the 


' See Lepsius, Die Arabischen Sprachlaute, p. 108, line 1. 


142° CHAPTER III. 


closed cavity of the mouth and support the sound of 
the vocal chords in the larynx.’ 

‘Because of the narrowed glottis, the rush of the 
air is more moderate, the noise of the air less sharp 
than with the tenues, which are pronounced with the 
glottis wide open, so that a great mass of air may 
rush forth at once from the chest. 

We now return to an examination of the various 
modifications of the breath, in their double character 
of hard and soft, or surd and sonant. The simple 
breathing in its double character of surd and sonant, 
can be modified in eight different ways by interposing 
certain barriers or gates formed by the tongue, the 
soft and hard palate, the teeth, and the lips. 

If, instead of allowing the breath to escape freely 
from the lungs to the lips, we hem it in by a barrier 
formed by lifting the tongue against the uvula, we 
get the sound of ch, as heard in the German ach or 
the Scotch loch.? If, on the contrary, we slightly 
check the breath as it reaches that barrier, we get the 
sound which is heard when the g in the German word 
Tage 18 not pronounced as a media, but as a semi- 
vowel, Tage. 

' This distinction is very lucidly described by R. von Raumer, 
Gesammelte Schriften, p. 444. He calls the hard letters flate, blown, 
the soft letters halate, exhaled. He observes that exhaled letters, 
though always sonant in English, are not so in other languages, and 
therefore divides the exhaled consonants, physiologically, into two 
classes, sonant and non-sonant. See also Investigations into the Laws 
of English Orthography and Pronunciation, by Prof. R. L. Tafel, 
New York, 1862. 

* The same sound occurs in some of the Dayak dialects of Borneo. 
See Surat Peminyuh Daya Sarawak, Reading Book for Land and Hill 


Dayaks, in the Sentah dialect. Singapore,1862. Printed at the Mission 
Press. . 


a 


THE ALPHABET, 143 


A second barrier is formed by bringing the tongue 
in a more contracted state towards the point where 
the hard palate begins, a little beyond the point 
where the & is formed. Letting the breath pass this 
isthmus, we produce the sound ch as heard in the 
German China or ich, a sound very difficult to an 


Fig. 14. 


AAA 
= — a YS 


ese 


ay < \ \ y \\ 


‘h (ch); e.g. Loch. y (ch); e.g. ich (German). 
*h (g) 3 e.g. Tage (German). y (y); &g. yea. 
Englishman, though approaching to the initial sound 
of words like hume, huge. If we soften or voice 
the breath as it reaches this barrier, we arrive at 
the familiar sound of y in year.? 
A third barrier, produced by advancing the tongue 
towards the teeth, modifies the breath into s, the voice 
' Ellis, English Phonetics, § 47. 
* There is no evidence whatever that the Sanskrit palatal flatus J (s) 
was ever pronounced like ch in German China and ich. Most likely it 
was the assibilated sound which can be produced if, while keeping the 


organs in the position for German ch, we narrow the passage and 
strengthen the breath, This, however, is merely an hypothesis. 


144, CHAPTER III. 


into z, the former completely surd, the latter sonant ; 
for instance, stm or rice; and seal or rise. 

A fourth barrier is formed by drawing the tongue 
back and giving it a more or less concave (retroussé) 
shape, so that we can distinctly see its lower surface 
brought in position towards the back of the upper 
teeth or the palate. By pressing the breath through 


\ 
A\\\y 


\" 
,) 
\\\ 


\ 


s; e.g. the rise, rice, sin. 
z; e.g. to rise, zeal. 23; e 2. azure. 


this trough, we get the letter sh as heard in sharp, 
and s as heard in pleaswre, or j in the French jamais, 
the former mute, the latter sonant. The pronuncia- 
tion of the Sanskrit lingual sh requires a very elabor- 
ate position of the tongue, so that its lower surface 
should really strike the roof of the palate. But a 
much more simple and natural position, as described 
above, will produce nearly the same effect. 

A fifth barrier is produced by bringing the tip of 
the tongue almost point-blank against the back of 


THE ALPHABET. 145 


the upper teeth, or, according to others, by placing 
it against the edge of the upper teeth, or even be- 
tween the edges of the upper and lower teeth. If, 
then, we emit the breath, we form the English 
th, if we emit the voice, the English dh; the former 
mute, as in breath, the latter intonable, as in to 
breathe, and both very difficult for a German to 


pronounce. 


NAVE i! 
. \ | UA 
\ 


th (p); e.g. breath. f; e.g. life. 
dh (8); e.g. to breathe. v; eg. to live. 


A sixth barrier is formed by bringing the lower lip 
against the upper teeth. This modifies the breath 
to f, the voice to v, as heard in life and to live, half 
and to halve. 

A seventh barrier is possible by bringing the two 
lips together. The sound there produced by the 
breath would be the sound which we make in blow- 
ing out a candle; it is not a favourite sound in 
civilised languages. If voiced, however, the sound 

LI: L 


146 CHAPTER III. 


is very common; it is the w in German as heard in 
Quelle, i.e. Kwelle;+ also sometimes in the German 
Wind, &e. 

An eighth barrier is formed by slightly contracting 
and rounding the lips, instead of bringing them 
together flat against each other. Here the breath 
assumes the sound of wh (originally hw), in wheel, 
which; whereas the voice is the common English 
double w, as heard in weal.” 

We have thus examined eight modifications of the 
breath and voice, beginning with spiritus asper and 

lenis, and ending with 
Pee ihe the labial breathing of 
wh and w. They are all 
emitted either eruptively 
or prohibitively, and de- 
termined by certain nar- 
rowings of the mouth. 
Considering the great 
plability of the muscles 
of the tongue and the 
mouth, we can easily 
imagine other possible 
\ nalrowings; but with 
Ww (wh) ; e.g. which. the exception of some 
W; eo. we. A 
peculiar letters of the 
Semitic and African languages, we shall find these 
eight sufficient for our own immediate purposes. 


1 Briicke, l.c. p. 34. 

* As my definition of the wh as a whispered counterpart of w, has 
been declared entirely false by an American critic, Mr. Whitney, and 
as I cannot pretend to speak with authority on the correct pronunciation 
.of English, to say nothing of American, I quote my authorities. Mr. 


THE ALPHABET, 147 


The peculiar guttural sounds of the Arabs, which 
have given rise to so much discussion, have at last 
been scientifically defined by Professor Czermak. 
After hearing these letters pronounced by an Arab, 
he tried to imitate them, and by applying the laryn- 
goscope to himself, he was able to watch the exact. 
formation of the Hha and Ain, which constitute a 
separate class of guttural breathings in the Semitic 
languages. This is his account. If the glottis is 
narrowed and the vocal chords brought near toge- 
ther, not however in a straight parallel position, but 
distinctly notched in the middle, while, at the same 
time, the epiglottis is pressed down, then the stream 
of breath in passing assumes the character of the 
Arabic Hha, o> as different from h, the spiritus asper, 


the Arabic x. If this Hha is made sonant, it becomes 
Ain. Starting from the configuration as described for 
Hha, all that takes place in order to changeit into Ain 
is that the rims of the apertures left open for Hha 
are brought close together, so that the stream of air 
striking against them causes a vibration in the fisswra 
laryngea, and not, as for other sonant letters, in the 
real glottis. These ocular observations of Czermak,} 


Ellis, in his Universal Writing, p. 6, says: ‘ Also distinguish weal, 
wheel, veal, feel, where wh represents the whisper of w. Some ortho- 
epists and most foreigners confuse wh with hu.’ Mr. Bell, in his Prin- 
ciples of Speech, p. 52, says, ‘When the aperture of the lips is slightly 
enlarged by the separation of their anterior edges, and the breath passes 
between the inner edges of the lips, the effect is that of the English wh, 
w; the former being the voiceless, the latter the vocal form of the same 
articulation.’ 

* Sitzungsberichte der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Olasse 
der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. xxix. p. 576, seq. 
Professor Lepsius, Die Arabischen Sprachlaute, has but partially 


L 2 


148 CHAPTER III. 


coincide with the phonetic descriptions given by Arab 
grammarians, and particularly with Wallin’s account. 
If the vibration in the fissura laryngea takes place 
less regularly, the sound assumes the character of a 
trilled 7, the deep guttural 7 of the Low Saxons. The 
Arabic ¢ and ¢ I must continue to consider as near 


equivalents of the ch in loch and ’h in German tage, 
though the pronunciation of the approaches some- 
times to a trill, like the 7 grasseyé. 


Trills. 

We have to add to this class of letters two which 
are commonly called trills, the rand the/. They can 
be pronounced. both as sonant and surd, but they differ 
from the other modifications by a vibration of certain 
portions of the mouth. Many people are deficient in 
their pronunciation of the different 7's, which are 
well described by Mr. Ellis. ‘In the trills, he writes, 

the breath is emitted with sufficient force to cause a 
vibration, not merely of some membrane, but of some 
much more extensive soft part, as the uvula, tongue, 
or lips. In the Arabie grh (grhain), which is the 
same as the Northumberland burr (burgrh, Hégrhiut 
for Harriet), and the French Provencal 7 grasseyé 
(as, Paris c'est la France, Paghri ¢’est la Fgrhance), 
the uvula lies along the back part of the tongue, 
pointing to the teeth, and is very distinctly vibrated. 
If the tongue is more raised and the vibration indis- 
adopted the views of Briicke and Czermak on what they call the 
Gutturales Vere in Arabic. See also a curious controversy between 
Professor Briicke and Professor Lepsius, in the 12th volume of the 


Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung. 
- 1 Universal Writing and Printing, by A. J. Ellis, B.A., 1856, p. 5. 


THE ALPHABET. . 149 


tinct or very slight, the result is the English r in more, 
poor, while a still greater elevation of the tongue pro- 
duces the r as heard after palatal vowels, as hear, 
mere, fire. These trills are so vocal that they form 
distinct syllables, as swrf, serf, fur, fir, virtue, honour, 
and are with difficulty separable from the vowels. 
Hence, when a guttural vowel precedes, the effect of 
the 7 is scarcely audible. Thus laud and lord, Jather 
and farther, are scarcely distinguishable,’ 

Professor Helmholtz describes 7 and J as follows :— 
‘In pronouncing r¢ the stream of-air ig periodically 
entirely interrupted by the trembling of the soft 
palate or of the tip of the tongue, and we then get 
an intermittent noise, the peculiar jarring quality of 
which is produced by these very intermissions. In 
pronouncing / the moving soft lateral edges of the 
tongue produce, not entire interruptions, but oscilla- 
tions in the force of air.’ ! 

If the lips are trilled the result is brh, a sound 
which children are fond of making, but which, like 
the corresponding spiritus asper, is of little import- 
ance in speaking. If the tongue is placed against 
the teeth, and its two lateral edges, or even one only, 
are made to vibrate, we hear the sound of J, which can 
easily be voiced, as well as the ¢. 

We have thus exhausted one class of letters which 
all agree in this, that they can be pronounced by 
themselves, and that their pronunciation can be con- 
tinued. In Greek, they are all included under the 
name of Hemiphona, or semi-vowels, while Sanskrit 
grammarians mention as their specific quality that, 

CeCe DL Lo, 


150 ; CHAPTER III. 


in pronouncing them, the two organs, the active and 
passive, which are necessary for the production of all 
consonantal noises, are not allowed to touch each 
other, but only to approach. 


Checks or Mutes. 


We now come to the third and last class of letters, 
which are distinguished from all the rest by this, that 
for a time they stop the emission of breath altogether. 
They are called by the Greeks aphona, mutes, because 


they are without any voice. They are formed, as the 
Sanskrit grammarians say, by complete contact of the 
active and passive organs. They will require very 
little explanation. If we bring the root of the tongue 
against the soft palate, we hear the consonantal noise 
of k. If we bring the tongue against the teeth, we 

1 In Panini, i. 1, 9, y, r, 1, v, are said to be pronounced with 


ishatsprishtam, slight touch; s,sh,s, h, with viveitam, opening, 
or ishadvivritam, slight opening, or asprishéam, no contact. 


THE ALPHABET. 15I 


hear the consonantal noise of ¢. If we bring the lower 
against the upper lip, we hear the consonantal noise 
of p. The real difference between those three articula- 
tions. consists in this, 
that in p, two flat sur- 
faces are struck against 
each other ; in ¢, a sharp 
against a flat surface ; 
in k a round against a 
hollow surface. These 
three principal contacts 
can be modified almost 
indefinitely, in some 
cases without percep- 
tibly altering the articu- 
lation. If we pronounce 
ku, ka, ki, the point of 
contact between tongue and palate advances con- 
siderably without much influence on the character 
of the initial consonant. The same applies to the ¢ 
contact.’ Here the essential point is that the tongue 
should strike against the wall formed by the teeth. 
But this contact may be effected— 

1. By flattening the tongue and bringing its edge 
against the alveolar part of the palate. 

2. By making the tongue convex, and bringing the 
lower surface against the dome of the palate (these are 
the lingual or cacumina] letters in Sanskrit).? 


1 Briicke, p. 38. 

* Formerly called cerebral, a mistranslation of mfitrddhanya, 
thoughtlessly repeated by many Sanskrit scholars and retained by others, 
on the strange ground that the mistake is too absurd to mislead anybody. 
Briicke, p. 37. 


TD CHAPTER III. 


3. By making the tongue convex, and bringing the 
upper surface against the palate, the tip against the 
lower teeth (dorsal ¢ in Bohemian). 

4. By slightly opening the teeth and stopping the 
aperture by the rounded tongue, or by bringing the 
tongue against the teeth. 

Most languages have only one ¢, the first or the 
fourth, some have two; but we seldom find more 
than two sets of dentals distinguished phonetically 
in one and the same dialect. 

If we place the tongue in a position intermediate 
between the guttural and dental contact, we can pro- 
duce various consonantal sounds which go by the 
general name of palatal. The click that can be pro- 
duced by jerking the tongue, from the position in 
which ich and yea are formed, against the palate, 
shows the possibility of a definite and simple conso- 
nantal contact analogous to the two palatal breath- 
ings. Some physiologists, however, and among them 
Briicke,! maintain that ch in English and Italian 
consists of two letters, ¢ followed by sh, and should 
not be classed as a simple letter. In Sanskrit, how- 
ever, the palatal check, the k, must be treated as a 
single letter, for it does not lengthen a preceding 
short vowel, as all really double consonants would do. 

What the exact pronunciation of this palatal letter 
may have been at different periods of the history of 
Sanskrit, is impossible to say. It is curious, however, 
to observe that, while the simple & and g do not 
lengthen a preceding vowel, the aspirated kh does so, 


1 Briicke, p. 638, seq. He would, however, distinguish these concrete 
consonants from groups of consonants, such as é, y. 


THE ALPHABET. 158 


and is in consequence written kkh. The k, as some- 
times heard in English, in kind, card, cube, cow, 
sounding almost like kyind, cyard, cywbe, cyow, may 
give us an idea of the transition of k into ky, and 
finally into English ch. In the northern dialects of 
Jutland a distinct 7 is heard after k and g if followed 
by @, e, 0, 6; for instance, kjwv’, kjwr, qjekk, kjerk, 
skyell, instead of kee, ker, &e.! 

It is not always perceived that these three con- 
sonants k, t, p, and their modifications, represent in 
reality two quite different effects. If we say ka, the 
effect produced on the ear is very different from ak. 
In the first case the consonantal noise is produced by 
the sudden opening of the tongue and palate ; in the 
second by their shutting. This is still clearer in pa 
and ap. In pa we hear the noise of two doors 
opening, in ap of two doors shutting. In empire we 
hear only half ap; the-shutting takes place in the m, 
and the p is nothing but the opening of the lips. In 
topmost we hear likewise only halfa p; we hear the 
shutting, but the opening belongs to the m. The 
same in uppermost. It is on this ground that these 
letters have sometimes been called dividuc, or di- 
visible, as opposed to the first class, in which that 
difference does not exist ; for whether I say sa or as, 
the sound of s is exactly the same. 


Sonant Checks, or Mediz. 


We should now have finished our survey of the 
alphabet of nature, if it was not that the consonantal 


1 See Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xii. 147 ; M.M., On the Pronunciation of ¢ 
before e, 1, y, ae, eu, oe, in the Academy, 15 Febr. 1871. 


154 CHAPTER III. 


stops k, t, p, are liable to certain modifications, which, 
as they are of great importance in the formation of 
language, deserve to be carefully considered. What 
is it that changes / into g and ng, t into d and n, p 
into band m? B is called a media, a soft letter, a 
sonant, in opposition to p, which is called a tenuis, a 
hard letter, or a surd. But what is meant by these 
terms? <A tenuis, we saw, was so called by the 
Greeks in opposition to the aspirates, the Greek 
grammarians wishing to express that the aspirates 
had a rough or shaggy sound,! whereas the tenues 
were bald, slight, or thin. This does not help us 
much. ‘Soft’ and ‘hard’ are terms which no doubt 
express an outward difference of p and 0b, but they 
do not explain the cause of that difference. The pro- 
cess which produces the difference between k and g, t 
and d, p and 6, is well deseribed by Briicke (p. 55): 
‘In all the systems,’ he writes, ‘elaborated by the 
students of language who have studied comparative 
phonology, the medic are classed as sonant, because 
phonetically they stand to the sonant fricative sounds 
(the sonant breathings) in the same relation as the 
tenues to the non-sonant (the surd_ breathing). 
Some, however, hesitate to class them simply as 
sonant letters, because they cannot be produced con- 
tinuously by the sonant voice. Against this we have 
to remark: The voice, as we have just seen, does 
sound sometimes really during the shutting of the 
organs ; or, if this is not so, the glottis at least is nar- 
rowed during the shutting of the organs so as to be 


* Briicke, p. 90. 7@ mveduati moAA®, Dion. Hal. R. von Raumer, 
Die Aspiration, p. 1038. 


THE ALPHABET. 155 


ready to sound, which is never the case with non- 
sonant consonants. If therefore the tone of the voice 
does stop, this is only because the difference between 
the pressure of the air in the chest and the mouth is 
not sufficiently great to cause a current which would 
produce a vibration of the vocal chords. With the - 
medic the vocal chords are ready to sound as long as 
the closing of the organs lasts, and the voice sounds 
therefore at once, as soon as the closure is over. This is 
the characteristic difference between tenuis and media.’ 

We may now understand why the terms soft and 
hard, as applied to 4 and p, are by no means so 
inappropriate as has sometimes been supposed. In 
many parts of Germany the distinction between 
¢ and d, p and b, is marked much more by hardness 
and softness of contact than by breath and voice. 
‘People speak of a hard and soft }, and of a hard and 
soft d, and thus seem tacitly to intimate that p and ¢ 
do not exist. 1 Czermak, by using his probe, as de- 
scribed above, found that surd or hard consonants 
(mute tenues) drove it up much more violently 
than sonant or soft consonants (mutz mediez).? The 
normal impetus of the breath is certainly checked, 
subdued, softened, when we pronounce b; it does not 
strike straight against the. barrier of the lips; it 
hesitates, so to say, and we hear how it clings to the 
glottis in its slow onward passage. The same obser- 
vation is made by Dr. Verner.? ‘In pronouncing 

' Lewes, Life of Goethe, p. 426. 

2 L.c.p. 9. Briicke (Grundziige, p. 56) remarks that these are se- 
condary characteristics of the tenwes and medi, but nevertheless quite 


correct. 
° Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xxiii. 116. 


156 CHAPTER III. 


sonant consonants, he says, ‘the chordee are brought 
together so as almost to touch. The small aperture 
prevents the free stream of the breath, so that the 
stream becomes weaker, and the closing of the buccal 
tube and the explosion are less energetic than with 
the surd consonants,’ 

Hardness and softness may therefore be quite 
rightly considered as secondary qualities of tenues 
and medic, of surd and sonant letters. The true 
physiological difference, however, between p and b, t 
and d,k and g, is due to the fact that with the former 
the glottis is wide open, with the latter narrowed, so 
as to produce voice, or, of the edges only approximate, 
whisper. 


Nasal Checks. 


Lastly, g, d, b, may be modified to ng,n,m. For 
these three nasals a full contact! takes place, but the 


* Lepsius, who divides all consonants into explosive or dividue, and 
fricative or continue, classes the nasals with the former. I do not 


THE ALPHABET. 157 


breath is stopped, not abruptly as in the tenues, but 
in the same manner as with the mediz. At the same 
time the breathing is 
emitted, not through the 
mouth, but generally 
through the nose. It is 
not necessary, however, 
that breath should be 
propelled through the 
nose, as long as the veil 
is withdrawn that sepa- 
rates the nose from the 
pharynx. Water injected 
into the nose while n 
and m are pronounced 
rushes at once into the 
windpipe.t Where the withdrawal of the velum is 
rendered impossible by disease—such a case came 


myself adopt that terminology, but I added these terms in the table on 
p- 158, simply for the sake of completeness. Signor Ascoli, in his 
Lezioni di Fonologia, p. 19, blames me for this division, evidently 
unaware that it belongs to Lepsius, and not to me. ‘ Erra,’ he writes, 
‘quindi Max Miiller, ponendo le nasali tra le esplosive.’ And he adds, 
‘La nasale @ continua, per la manifesta ragione che gli organi rimangono 
nel suo proferimento, e possono indeterminatemente rimanere, nella 
stessa disposizione in cui sin da principio si mettono.’ This may be 
right or wrong according to the definition which is given of technical 
terms, such as explosive and continue. But Signor Ascoli ought to have 
known what Lepsius had written in defence of his view, before he called 
his view erroneous. Lepsius says: ‘It is a decided mistake to reckon m 
and m among the consonantes continue; for in m and 1 it is only the 
vowel element inherent in the first half, which may be continued at 
pleasure, whilst in all the continuous consonants it is the consonantal 
element (the friction) which must be continued, as in f, v, s, 2’ (p. 60, 
note). 
* Czermak, Wiener Akademie, xxiv. p. 9. 


158 CHAPTER III. 


under Czermak’s! observation—pure nasals cannot be 
produced.’ 

The so-called mouillé or softened nasal, and all 
other mouillé consonants, are produced by the addi- 
tion of a final y, and need not be classified as simple 
letters.° 


Aspirated Checks. 


For most languages the letters hitherto described 
would be amply sufficient; but in the more highly- 
organised forms of speech new distinctions were intro- 
duced and graphically expressed which deserve some 
explanation. Instead of pronouncing a tenuis as it 
ought to be pronounced, by cutting sharp through 
the stream of breath or tone which proceeds from the 
larynx, it is possible to gather the breath and to let it 
explode audibly as soon as the consonantal contact is 
withdrawn. In this manner we form the hard or 
surd aspirates which occur in Sanskrit and in Greek, 
kh, th, ph. . 

If, on the contrary, we pronounce g, d, b, and 
allow the soft breathing to be heard as soon as the 
contact is removed, we have the soft aspirates, which 
are of frequent occurrence in Sanskrit, gh, dh, bd. 

Much discussion has been raised on these hard and 
soft aspirates, the question being whether their first 


1 Funke, p. 681. Czermak, Wiener Akademie, xxix. p..173. 

* Professor Helmholtz has the following remarks on M and N: ‘M 
and N resemble the vowels in their formation, because they cause no 
noise in the buccal tube. The buccal tube is shut, and the voice escapes 
through the nose. The mouth forms only a resounding cavity, modifying 
the sound. If we watch from below people walking up-hill and speaking 
together, the nasals m and v are heard longest.’ 

* See Briicke, Grundziige, p. 70. 


THE ALPHABET. 159 


element was really a complete consonantal contact, or 
whether the contact was incomplete, and the letters 
intended were only hard and soft spirants. As we 
have no means of hearing either the old Brahmans or 
the ancient Greeks pronounce their hard aspirates, 
and as it is certain that pronunciation is constantly — 
changing, we cannot hope to derive much aid either 
from modern Pandits or from modern Greeks. The 
Brahmans of the present day are said to pronounce 
their kh, th, and ph like a complete tenuis, followed 
by the spiritus asper. The nearest approach to kh 
is said to be the English kh in inkhorn, though this 
can hardly be a good illustration, as here the tenuis 
ends and the aspirate begins asyllable. The Irish pro- 
nunciation of kind, town, pig, has likewise been quoted 
as in some degree similar to the Sanskrit hard aspi- 
rates. In the modern languages of India, where the 
Sanskrit letters are transcribed by Persian letters, we 
actually find kh represented by two letters, k and h, 
joined together, and pronounced accordingly. With 
the modern Greeks, on the contrary, the three aspirates 
have become breathings, like h, th, f. It seems to me 
that the only two points of importance are, first, 
whether these aspirates in Greek or Sanskrit were 
formed with or without complete contact, and, secondly, 
whether they were classed as surd or assonant. The 
ancient grammarians of India allow, as far as I can 
judge, of no doubt on either of these points. The 
hard aspirates are formed by complete contact 
(sprishta), and they belong to that class of letters 
for which the glottis must be completely open, i.e. to 
the surd or hard consonants. These two points once 


160 CHAPTER III. 


established put an end to all speculations on the 
dynamic character of these letters. What their exact 
sound may have been is difficult to determine, because 
the ancient authorities vary in their descriptions. 
They are said to be uttered with a strong out- 
breathing (mahdApréva), but this, as it is shared by 
them in common with the soft aspirates and the hard 
breaths, cannot constitute their distinctive feature. 
Their technical name ‘soshman, i.e. ‘with wind, 
would admit of two explanations. ‘ Wind’ might be 
taken in the general sense of breath, or—and this, I 
believe, is more correct—in the sense of the eight 
letters called ‘the winds’ in Sanskrit, h, s, sh, s, 
tongue-root breath (Gihvamiliya), labial breath 
(UpadhmAaniya), neutral breath (Visarga), and 
neutral nasal (Anusvara). Thus it is actually 
maintained by some ancient grammarians! that the 
hard aspirates are the hard letters, k, t, p, together 
with the corresponding winds or homorganic breath- 
ings; that is to say, kh is=k+tongue-root breath, 
th=t+s, ph=p-+labial breath. 

As to the old Greek aspirates, we know that they 
belonged to the aphona, i.e. that they were formed by 
complete contact. They were not originally hemi- 
phona or breathings, though they became so after- 
wards. That they were hard, or pronounced with 
open glottis, we must gather from their original signs, 
such as IIH, and from their reduplicated forms, t7- 
themt, ké-chyka, pé-phyka.” 

' Survey of Languages, p. xxxii. Sakala-pratisakhya, xiii. 
m3 Raumer, Aspiration, 96. Curtius, Gr. Etymologie, ii. p. 11. 


THE ALPHABET. 161 


It is more difficult to determine the real nature of 
the Sanskrit soft aspirates, gh, dh, bh. According 
to some grammarians they are produced by the union 
of g, d, b, with ’h, which in Sanskrit is a sonant letter, 
a spiritus lenis in its least modified form.! The same 
grammarians, however, maintain that they are not - 
formed entirely with the glottis closed, or as sonant 
letters, but that they and the h require the glottis 
‘both to be opened and to be closed. What this means 
is somewhat obscure. <A letter may be either surd 
or sonant, but it can hardly be both, and the fact that 
not only the four soft aspirates but the simple ’h? 
also were considered as surd-sonant, would seem to 
show that an intermediate rather than a compound 
utterance is intended. One thing is certain, namely, 
that neither the surd nor the sonant aspirates were 
originally mere breathings. They are both based on 
complete contact, and therefore different from the surd 
and sonant breathings which sometimes take their 
places in cognate tongues. 


The General Alphabet. 


We have thus finished our survey, which I have 
tried to keep as general as possible, without dwelling 
on any of the less normal letters, which are found in 


* If Sanskrit writing were not of so late a date, the fact that the 
Vedic dh or lh is actually represented by a combination of J and h might 
be quoted in support of this theory (g — =i) 

? Sakala-Pratisikhya, xiii. 1. The expression ‘the breath be- 
comes both sonant and surd between the two,’ i.e. between the complete 
Opening and shutting, shows that an intermediate sound is meant, or, 
it may be, a sonant check followed by a whispered h. 


aT: M 


162 CHAPTER III. 


every language, in every dialect—nay, in the pro- 
nunciation of every individual. It is the excessive 
attention paid to these exceptional letters that has 
rendered most works on Phonetics so complicated 
and worthless. If we have clearly impressed on 
our mind the normal conditions of the organs of 
speech in the production of vowels and consonants, 
it will be easy to arrange the sounds of every new 
language under the categories once established, on a 
broad and firm basis. To do this, to arrange the 
alphabet of any given language according to the 
compartments planned by physiological research, 18 
the office of the grammarian, not of the physiologist. 
But even here, too much nicety is dangerous. It is 
easy to perceive some little difference between k, t, p, 
and g, d, b as pronounced by an Englishman and by 
a German; yet each has only one set of tenues and 
mediae, and to class them as different and represent 
them by different graphic exponents would produce 
nothing but confusion. The Semitic nations have 
sounds which are absent in the Indo-European lan- 
guages—the sounds which Briicke has well described 
as guttwrales vere, true gutturals; for the letters 
which we commonly call gutturals, k, g, have really 
nothing to do with the guttur, but with the root of 
the tongue and the soft palate. But their character, if 
only accurately described, as it has been by Czermak, 
will easily become intelligible to the student of 
Hebrew and Arabic, if he has once acquired a clear 
conception of what has been well called the Alphabet 
of Nature. To sum up, we must distinguish three 
things :— 


THE ALPHABET. 163 


(1) What letters are made of. 
(2) How they are made. 
(3) Where they are made. 


(1) Letters are formed— 
(a) Of vocalised breath. These are called vowels _ 
(Phénéenta, no contact). 
(b) Of breath, not vocalised. These are called 
breathings (Hémiphona, slight contact). 
(c) Of articulate noise. These are called checks or 
stopping letters (Aphina, complete contact). 


(2) Letters are formed— 

(a) With wide opening of the chord vocales. 
These are called surd letters or non-sonant (psila, 
tenues, hard, sharp; vivarasvasAghoshAh). 

(b) With a narrowing of the chorde vocales. 
These are called sonant letters (mesa, medize, soft, 
blunt; samvdranddaghosh&h). This distinction 
applies both to breathings and to checks, though the 
effect as pointed out is different. 


(3) Letters are formed in different places by active 
and passive organs, the normal places being those 
marked by the contact between the root of the tongue 
and the palate, the tip of the tongue and the teeth, 
and the upper and lower lips, with their various 
modifications. 


as eta ey RP gs dl a Re ene 


“BAISOTAX OATS BATFIQTY OL 


—————— 

w | (qq) 4 | (qd) d 

E (w) (yp) p | (4A) 4 

= (qp)p | (49) 4 

e (<u) w| (y6)6 | (44) 4 

A | (Suu | (qs) 8 | (4 

5 . 
*JUBULOG 

-[@s@ NT *qUBUOG ‘pang 


Surpysny | Surpysny | surysnyy 


‘ywatg f0 sxyveY4Q 


eee en Se eee = ee 


164 


‘ONUTJUOD) AIS BATPCOLLT 


—_—— 
Up ee dee 
29) ‘Tenh M ° ° 
St Seles AN ee 
oyyBorg Fp | YPeerq YF 
I omsvetd 2| davys s 
I OSI 0} Z QoL § 


wok Lf} “9 “gor 4 


‘p ‘oovy, Y. qoor 4, 
pue A puvy : 

*PeTLAL "qUvTLOG "pang 
SuIpysnyy SUIPISNY SULYSnyYy 


"YWWaNg JO SUOLSSLUHT 


‘ papunor sd] 1oaMo] pue roddg °6 
5 sdiy samo, puv reddy °g 

: yj003 roddn puv diy 1eMoT *4 
: 43004 Jo espe pu onsuoy, *9 
ayeped puv pestoaer ONSUOT, *G 

* Yjoo} pus onsu0} jo diy, “F 
oyvied pavy puUv ONSUOY JO JOOY °F 
ayvied 4yos pue ONSU0} JO JOOY °% 
° = 81910 TT 


‘SOIDIT 


“LACVHATV TVOIDOTOISAHd 


THE ALPHABET. 165 


APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III. 


On Transliteration. 


Havine on former occasions discussed the problem 
of transcribing languages by a common alphabet,! I 
should, for the present, have passed over that subject 
altogether, if I had not been repeatedly urged to 
declare my opinion on other alphabets reeommended 
to the public by powerful advocates. No one has 
worked more energetically for the propagation of a 
common alphabet than Professor Lepsius, of Berlin ; 
and though, in my opinion, and in the opinion of 
much more competent judges, such as Briicke, the 
physiological basis of his alphabet is not free from 
error—nay, though in the more limited field of lan- 
guages on which I can form an independent opinion 
he has certainly misapprehended the nature of several 
letters and classes of letters—I should nevertheless 
rejoice in the success even of an imperfect alphabet, 
supposing it had any chance of general adoption. 
If his alphabet could become the general alphabet at 
least among African scholars, it would be a real 
benefit to that new branch of philological studies. 
But I regret to see that even in Africa those who, 
like Dr. Bleek, are most anxious to follow the pro- 
positions of Professor Lepsius, find it impossible to 
do so, ‘on account of its too great typographical 


* Proposals for a Missionary Alphabet in M.M.’s Survey of Languages 
(2nd edition), 1855. 


166 CHAPTER III. 


difficulties.’1 If this is the case at a steam printing- 
office in Cape Town, what can we expect at Neu- 
herrnhut? Another and even more serious objec- 
tion, urged likewise by a scholar most anxious to 
support the Church Missionary Alphabet, is that the 
scheme of Dr. Lepsius, as modified by the Church of 
England and Continental Missionary Societies, has 
long ceased to be a uniform system. 

The Societies (says the Rev. Hugh Goldie, in his ‘ Dictionary 
of the Efik Language,’ Glasgow, 1862) have not succeeded in 
establishing a uniform system, for which Dr. Lepsius’s alphabet 
is taken as a base: deviations are made from it, which vary in 
different languages, and which destroy the claim of this system 
to uniformity. Marks are employed in the Church of England 
Society which are not employed by the continental societies, 
and vice versd. This, I think, is fatal to the one great recom- 
mendation of the system, namely, its claim to be received as a 
common system. Stripped of its adventitious recommendations, 
and judged on its own merits, we think it deficient in simplicity. 

These are serious objections; and yet I should 
gladly have waived them and given my support to 
the system of Professor Lepsius, if, during the many 
years that it has been before the public, I had ob- 
served any signs of its taking root, or of that slow and 
silent growth which alone augurs well for the future. 
What has been, I believe, most detrimental to its 
success, is the loud advocacy by which it was at- 
tempted to force that system on the acceptance of 
scholars and missionaries, many of them far more 
competent, in their own special spheres,’ to form an 

1 Dr. Bleek, Comparative Grammar, p. xii. 

? Professor Lepsius has some interesting remarks on the African 


clicks. The Rev. J. L. Dohne, author of a Zulu Kafir Dictionary, ex- 
pressed himself against Dr. Lepsius’s proposal to write the clicks before 


THE ALPHABET. gay; 


opinion of its defects than either its author or its 
patrons. That my unwillingness to adopt the system 
of Professor Lepsius did not arise from any predi- 
lection for my own Missionary Alphabet, I have 
proved by continuing for a long time to employ the 
system of Sir William Jones, particularly when 
writing for the English public. My own system was, 
in every sense of the word, a missionary system. 
My object was, if possible, to devise an alphabet, 
capable of expressing every variety of sound that 
could be physiologically defined, and yet not requir- 
ing one single new or artificial type. As in most 
languages we find, besides the ordinary sounds that 
can be expressed by the ordinary types, one, or at 
the utmost two modifications to which certain letters 
or classes of letters are liable, I proposed italics as 
exponents of the first degree of modification, small 
capitals as exponents of the second degree. Thus 
as, besides the ordinary dentals, t, th, d, dh, we find 
in Sanskrit the linguals, I proposed that these should 
be printed as italics, t, th, d, dh, instead of the usual 
but more difficult types, t’, th’, d’, dh’; or t, th, d, dh. 
As in Arabic we find, besides the ordinary dentals, 


their accompanying letters. He at the same time advanced some etymo- 
logical arguments in support of his own view. How is the African mis- 
sionary answered? I quote Professor Lepsius’s reply, which can hardly 
have convinced his learned adversary, ‘Equally little,’ he writes, ‘should 


we be justified in inferring from the fact, that in the Sanskrit @fZ 
let‘i (sic), he Icks, from fae lih, and f@ ti, t° (sic) must be pro- 
nounced not as th (sic), but as ht (sic).’ How the change of Sanskrit h 
and t into d‘ (g is dh, not th) has any bearing on the Rev. J. L. Dohne’s 


argument about the clicks, few missionaries in Africa will be able to 
understand. 


168 CHAPTER IIT. 


another set of linguals, I proposed to express these 
too by italics. ‘These italics were only intended to 
show that the dentals printed in italics were not 
meant for the usual dentals. This would have been 
sufficient for those not acquainted with Sanskrit or 
Arabic, while Sanskrit and Arabic scholars could 
have had little doubt as to what class of modified 
dentals was intended in Sanskrit or Arabic. If 
certain letters require more than one modification— 
as, for instance, t,'s, n, r—then small capitals would 
have to come in, and only in very extreme cases 
would an additional diacritical mark have been re- 
quired for a third modification of one common type. 
If through the liberality of one opulent society, the 
Church Missionary Society,’ complete founts of com- 
plicated and expensive types are to be granted to any 
press that will ask for them, there is no further need 
for italics or small capitals—mere make-shifts, that 
could only have recommended themselves to poor 
missionaries wishing to obtain the greatest results by 
the smallest means. It is curious, however, that in 
spite of all that has been urged against a systematic 
use of italics, italics crop out almost everywhere both 
in philological works at home and in missionary pub- 
lications abroad, while as yet I have very seldom met 
with the Church Missionary 6 for the vowel in French 
cewr, or with the Church Missionary § for the Sans- 
krit sh, as written by Sir W. Jones. 

Within the circle of languages in which I take a 
more immediate interest, the languages of India, the 


1 See Resolution 2, carried August 26, 1861, at the Church Mission- 
ary House, London. 


THE ALPHABET, 169 


adoption of the alphabet advocated by the Church 
Missionary Society seems now, after the successful 
exertions of Sir Charles Trevelyan, more than hope- 
less, nor do I think that.for people situated like the 
modern Hindus such a pis-aller as italics and small 
capitals is likely to be popular. Living in England, - 
and writing chiefly for England and India, I natu- 
rally decided to follow that system which was so 
modestly put forth by Sir William Jones in the first 
volume of the ‘Asiatic Researches,’ and has since, 
with slight modifications, not always improvements, 
been adopted by the greatest Oriental scholars in 
India, England, and on the Continent. In reading 
that essay, written about eighty years ago, one is sur- 
prised to see how well its author was acquainted 
with all that is really essential either in the physio- 
logical analysis or in the philological definition of 
the alphabet. I do not think the criticism of Pro- 
fessor Lepsius quite fair when he imputes to Sir W. 
Jones ‘a defective knowlege of the general organism 
of sounds, and of the distinct sounds to be repre- 
sented ;’ nor can I blame the distinguished founder 
of the Asiatic Society for the imperfect application 
of his own principles, considering how difficult it is 
for a scholar to sacrifice his own principles to con- 
siderations of a more practical nature. 

The points on which I differ from Sir W. Jones 
are of very small consequence. They arise from 
habit rather than from principle. I should willingly 
give them up if by so doing I could help to bring 
about a more speedy agreement among Sanskrit - 
scholars in England and India. I am glad to find 


170 CHAPTER III. 


that in the second edition of his ‘Standard Alphabet’ 
Professor Lepsius has acknowledged the practical 
superiority of the system of Sir W. Jones in several 
important points, and I think he will find that his 
own system may be still further improved, or at all 
events have a better chance of success in Europe as 
well as in India, if it approaches more and more 
closely to that excellent standard. The subjoined 
table will make this clearer than any comment :— 


Sanskrit Alphabet, as transcribed by Sir W. Jones, by M. M., 
in the Missionary, and in the Church Missionary 
Alphabets. 


. Missionary Church Miss. Missionary Church Miss, 
Sir W. Jones. M. M. Alphabet. Alphabet. Sir W. Jones. M. M, Alphabet. Alphabet. 


Wqooa a a a a c k k k 

at 4 ib ala Wate i@ och kh kh KEorkh 
Teepe H i 1 TT +g g g g 

= i i i I gq eh gh gh gorgh 
i { u u u u Nou? aa n N nh 

i a eer J eerch ch ok Kk or é 
Bw ri ri TU we as @ chh chh kh Korth 
Wott, oN tS eee 
cop iat 4h ligwial aq jh jh. gh. Borjh 
Te lci7 a ee Sy None en Ra es 

U 6 e CmemtCLoa 2 et t t t 

BT 6 0) 6 AULOTeO. a | ct eet th t or th 
Ua al HN hi J cd d d d 
Alihauk hale aan Peau ZS «@h-dhv dk aidoman 


THE ALPHABET. Vet 


Missionary Church Miss, . Missionary Church Miss. 
Bete eMEM-S Atohabet, Alphabet, a) (bir We Joneses he MAM. “arenes ogyeee aie 


w on n n n Td NS r r rorr 
a +t t t t @q 1 l l ] 

YW th th Ebest or th:| Qaaey Vary Vv 
amide edie d Wises Say) saad fornix 
Sip bee dh) dh. -d'ordh) Ge 4 'sh sh sh  gor8 
aq n n n n q S 8 8 S 

El aa CN Sac a Pea tt laos Laban 1 

Ree) On DUS phoean-or pha amr th fo Rs 

q Pee bisa b Se gene 3. 

Hey fey bhite bhio bionbhy{ amass hh ioe jo-sehiy 

a m m ao — ] y ] 
eee h h h x — th h — 
Sar Vite ny. siz ¥ 


N.B. For the use of missionaries and travellers a vocabulary has been 
compiled by Mr. John Bellows, which has proved of great assistance in 
collecting the words of new languages and dialects, Outline Dictionary 
for the Use of Missionaries, Explorers, and Students of Language, with 
an introduction on the proper use of the ordinary English alphabet in 
transcribing foreign languages by Max Miiller, M.A. London: 
Triibner & Co., 60 Paternoster Row. Calcutta: George Wyman & 
Co. 1867. 


CHAPTER IV. 


PHONETIC! CHANGE 


THOUGH the number of vowels and consonants, 
according to Mr. Melville Bell’s system, gives but a 
faint idea of the enormous wealth of vocalic and con- 
sonantal utterances at the command of the human 
voice, yet even that limited number, as we saw, 
never occurs in its completeness in any one of the 
spoken languages of the world. We find very rich 
and very poor alphabets, and when we have to deal 
with written languages, we must not forget that in 
them the same letter often expresses very different 
sounds, while different letters express as often one 
and the same sound. 

It is curious how little people are aware of this in 
their own language. In modern German, for instance, 
the written g has decidedly three different powers. 
It is pronounced g and y in Wege, it is pronounced ch 
in Weg in the North, and it is pronounced k in the 
South, so that Schiller rhymes Weg with keck. 
Here then we have something like Grimm’s Law 
exemplified in one and the same language. And such 
is the influence of writing on pronunciation that some 
German purists actually maintain that the final g 


ee ee 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 173 


should be pronounced as g in gabe, though this would be 
against all analogy in German, for in modern German 
no sonant letters are tolerated at the end of words. 

It may easily be imagined what havoc is wrought, 
when languages come to be written down for the 
first time. If missionaries complain that they cannot. 
distinguish in what they hear spoken by natives 
between k and g,¢ and d, p and 6, the fault may be on 
the side of the speakers who often utter sounds that 
are neither surd nor sonant, but it may also be the 
fault of the hearers. The Ainos, for instance, have 
a dental of which, as the missionaries assure us, it 1s 
impossible to say whether it is a ¢ or a d (see p. 190 
infra). Much depends here on the accurate ear of 
those who introduce writing among illiterate tribes. 
Mr. Horatio Hale (Jowrnal of Anthropol. Institute, 
1885, p. 238) mentions a case in point. There is in 
Hawaian a catch of the breath which distinguishes, 
for instance, ao, daylight, from ao, to teach. This 
catch is really the last remnant of a consonant, for 
ao, to teach, was originally ako. A similar catch 
has been observed by the Rev. Asher Wright among 
the Senecas and other Indian tribes, but it has seldom 
been marked in writing. Mr. Melville Bell (Un- 
versity Lectures, p. 45) assures us that in the dialect 
of Renfrewshire in Scotland also a throat-catch 1s 
regularly used instead of ¢ between vowels, as in 
butter, water, pronounced bwer, waver. If such 
sounds are not observed and marked in writing, they 
are apt to disappear after a time in speaking also, 
particularly where the missionaries who introduce 
writing are also the first to teach reading. 


174 CHAPTER IY, 


Rich Alphabets. 


We generally find the largest number of sounds 
and letters in languages which have absorbed several 
dialects, or are the result of a mixture of different 
languages, each retaining for a time its own phonetic 
peculiarities. We see this, for instance, very clearly 
in English and in Hindustani. In French also we 
can see an evident mixture of Romanic and Teutonic 
sounds. It is becatise French is Latin as spoken not 
only by the Roman provincials but by the German 
Franks, that we find in its dictionary words begin- 
ning with f and with gui. The former is due to 
German throats; the latter is an attempt of a Roman 
mouth to pronounce the German w. Thus hair is to 
hate ; hameau, home; hater, to haste; déguwiser points 
to wise, guile to wile, guichet to wicket. It is because 
English is Saxon as spoken not only by Saxons, but 
likewise by Normans, that we hear in it several 
sounds which do not occur in any other Teutonic 
dialects. The sounds of ch and j in English, though 
not the same as in modern French, are Romanic 
rather than Teutonic sounds; but, once admitted 
into English, their influence has spread to words of 
Saxon descent also. Thus cheer in good cheer is the 
French chére, the Medieval Latin cara ;! chamber, 
chambre, camera; cherry, A.S. cirse, Fr. cerise, Lat. 
cerasa or cerasia; to preach, précher, predicare ; joy 
is gaudiwm, judge is yudex, &c. But the same sounds 


1 Cara in Spanish, chitre in Old French, mean face; Nicot uses 
‘avoir la chtre baissée.’? It afterwards assumed the sense of welcome, 
and hospitable reception. Cf. Diez, Lex. Etym. s.v. Cara. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 175 


found their way into Saxon words also, when the gut- 
turals were followed by non-guttural vowels, by é (a), 
é (d), and y, ¥, e.g. chaff, cheap, chew, child, churl for 
A.S8. ceaf, céap, céowan, cild, ceorl; but keel, kin, kiss 
for A.S. célan, cyn, cyssan. In such words as rich, 
teach, fetch, the guttural was originally followed by — 
a vowel, viz. A.S. rice, téccan, feccean. Words like 
bridge, hedge, edge, vidge correspond to A.S. brycg, 
German Briicke, hecg, G. Hecke, ecg, G. Ecke, hrycg, 
G. Ricken. 

The soft sound of z in azure or of s in vision is 
likewise of Romanic origin. 

Words, on the contrary, in which th occurs are 
Saxon, and had to be pronounced by the Normans as 
well as they could. To judge from the spelling of 
MSS., they would often seem to have pronounced d 
instead of th. Even in modern English we still hear 
both burden and burthen, while when we hear an 
Irishman, it is often difficult to tell whether he says 
murther or murder. The same applies to words 
containing wh, originally hw, or ght, originally ht; as 
in who, which, or bought, light, right. All these are 
truly Saxon, and the Scotch dialect preserves the 
original guttural sound of h before t, while it has 
vanished in English. 

Sanskrit owes its rich and perfect alphabet, not so 
much to mixture, though the linguals may have been 
of non-Aryan origin, as to the fact that the language 
had been carefully analysed, when it existed as yet 
in a spoken state only, while the written signs were 
contrived at a later time, evidently borrowed from 


1 Sievers, Angelsdchsische Grammatik, § 206. 


176 ; CHAPTER IV. 


a Semitic source, but systematically adapted so as to 
provide a separate sign for every sound of the old 
oral alphabet. 

Poor Alphabets. 


There are other languages in which we look in vain 
for letters which to us would seem almost indis- 
pensable. We are so accustomed to look upon pa 
and ma as the most natural articulations, that we can 
hardly imagine a language without them. We have 
been told over and over again that the names for 
father and mother in all languages are derived from 
the first cry of recognition which an infant can articu- 
late, and that it could at that early age articulate 
none but those formed by the mere opening or closing 
of the lips. It is a fact, nevertheless, that the Mo- 
hawks, of whom I knew an interesting specimen at 
Oxford, never, either as infants or as grown-up 
people, articulate with their lips. They have no 7, d, 
m, f, v, w—no labials of any kind; and although 
their own name Mohawk would seem to bear witness 
against this, that name is not a word of their own 
language, but was given to them by their neighbours. 
Nor are they the only people who always keep their 
mouths open and abstain from articulating labials.? 
They share this peculiarity with five other tribes, who 
together form the so-called six nations, Mohawks, 
Senekas, Onandagos, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Tusca- 
roras. The Hurons likewise have no labials, and 


1 Brosses, Formation mécanique des Langues, i. p.220: ‘La Hontan 
ajoute qu’aucune nation du Canada ne fait usage de la lettre f, que les 


Hurons, 4 qui elles manquent toutes quatre (B, P, M, F), ne ferment’ 


jamais les lévres.’ # and s are wanting in Rarotongan. Hale, p. 232. 


a 


PHONETIC CHANGE. var) 


there are other languages in America with a similar 
deficiency.' The nearest approach to p seems to 
them kw, and thus we find that the Iroquois, when 
they tried to pronounce the English word penny, 
called it kwénis, and then used the word in the more 
general sense of copper.? | 

The gutturals are seldom absent altogether; in 
some, as in the Semitic family, they are most pro- 
minent, and represented by a numerous array of 
letters. Several languages have only &, others only 
g; while some are said not to distinguish between i: 
and g. The sound of g as in gone, of j as in jet, and 
of z as in zone, which are often heard in Kafir, have 
no place in the Sechuana alphabet. There are a few 
dialects, however, mentioned by Bindseil, which are 
entirely destitute of gutturals; for instance, that of 
the Society Islands. It was unfortunate that one of 
the first English names which the natives of thege 
islands had to pronounce was that of Captain Cook, 
whom they could only call Tute. The Tahitian, the 
Hawaian, and Samoan ® are likewise said to be with- 


* See Bindseil, Abhandlungen, p.368. The Mixteca language has no 
p, 6,f; the Mexican no b, v, f; the Totonaca no 6, v,f; the Kaigdéni 
(Haidah) and Thlinkit no b, p, f (Pott, Et. F. ii. 63); the Hottentot no 
J or v (Sir G. Grey’s Library, i. p. 5); the languages of Australia no f or 
v (ibid. ii. 1,2). Some of the statements of Bindseil as to the presence 
and absence of certain letters in certain languages, require to be re- 
examined, as they chiefly rest on Adelung’s Mithridates. 

* J. N. B. Hewitt, in Science, 1888, Jan. 6. 

* Bindseil, Ul. c. 344; Mithridates, i. 632, 637. 

* Appleyard, p. 50. 

° Hale, p. 232. To avoid confusion, it may be stated that throughout 
Polynesia, with the exception of Samoa, all the principal groups of 
islands are known to the people of the other groups by the name of 
their largest island. Thus, the Sandwich Islands are termed Hawati ; 


1 N 


178 CHAPTER IV. 


out gutturals. In these dialects, however, there 
existed originally, as we shall see, an indifferentiated 
letter, halfway between ¢ and k. 

The dentals seem to exist in every language! The 
d, however, is never used in Chinese, nor in Mexican, 
Peruvian, and several other American dialects,? and 
the n is absent in the language of the Hurons® and 
of some other American tribes. The s is absent in 
the Australian dialects+ and in several of the Poly- 
nesian languages, where its place is taken by h.° 
Thus in Tongan we find hahake for sasake; in the 
New Zealand dialect heke for seke. In Rarotongan 
the s is entirely lost, as in ae for sae. When the h 
stands for an original s, it has a peculiar hissing 
sound which some have represented by sh, others by 
zh, others by he or h’, or simply e. Thus the word 
hongi, from the Samoan song?, meaning to salute by 
pressing noses, has been spelt by different writers, 
shongi, ehongi, heongi, hongi and zongi.2 But even 
keeping on more familiar ground, we find that so 
perfect a language as Sanskrit has no /, no soft 
sibilants, no short e, and 0; Greek has no y, no w, no 
f, no soft sibilants; Latin has no @, ¢, x. English is 
deficient in guttural breathings like the German ach 
and ich. High German has no w like the English w 


the Marquesas, Nukuhiva; the Society Islands, Tahiti; the Gambier 
Group, Mangareva; the Friendly Islands, Tonga; the Navigator 
Islands, Samoa (all), see Hale, pp. 4, 120; the Hervey Islands, 
Rarotonga; the Low or Dangerous Archipelago, Paumotu ; Bowditch 
Island is Fakaafo. 

1 Bindseil, 7. c. p. 358. 2 Ibid. p, 365, 3 Ibid. p. 334. 

* Sir George Grey’s Library, ii. 1, 3. 

5 Hale, J.c. p. 282. ° Ibid. pp. 122, 234. 


ee eee * 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 179 


in wind, no th, dh, ch, 7. While Sanskrit has no ji 
Arabic has no p. F is absent not only in those 
dialects which have no labial articulation at all, but 
we look for it in vain in Finnish (despite of its name, 
which was given it by its neighbours),! in Lithu- 
anian,” in the Gipsy languages, in Tamil, Mongolian, 
some of the Tataric dialects, Burmese, &c.? 

The Otyi-herero has neither 7 nor f, nor the sibi- 
lants s7z. The pronunciation is lisping, in conse- 
quence of the custom of the Va-herero of having their 
upper front teeth partly filed off, and four lower 
teeth knocked out. It is perhaps due to this that 
the Otyi-herero has two sounds similar to those of 
the hard and soft th and dh in English (written, s, z)A 

It is well known that r is felt to be a letter difficult 
to pronounce, not only by individuals but by whole 
nations. No Chinese who speaks the classical lan- 
guage of the empire, ever pronounces that letter. 
They say Az li sse tu instead of Christ; Eulopa in- 
stead of Hurope; Ya me li ka instead of America. 
Hence neither Mandarin nor Sericwm can be Chinese 
words: the former is the Sk. mantrin, counsellor ; 
the latter derived from Seres, a name given to the 
Chinese by their neighbours.® It is likewise absent 


' Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 62. 

* “F does not occur in any genuine Sclavonic word.’—Briicke, 
Grundziige, p. 34. * Bindseil, p. 289. 

* Sir G. Grey’s Library, i. 167. A. Kaufmann (Das Gebiet des 
Weissen Flusses und dessen Bewohner ; Brixen, 1861) says of the Dinka 
language that it is without sibilants, such as S,8h,z, This may be due 
to the fact that the Dinka, like all other negroes of the White River, 
take out the front teeth of the lower jaw. They are also without / and 
ch, but have instead the sound of ng and gh, like Arabic ¢, 


* Pott, Deutsche Morgenlindische Gesellschaft, xii. 453. 
N 2 


180 CHAPTER IV. 


in the language of the Hurons, the Mexicans, the 
Othomi, and other American dialects; in the Kafir 
language,' and in several of the Polynesian” tongues. 
In the Polynesian tongues the name of Christ is 
Kalaisi, but also Karaita and Keriso. R frequently 
alternates with Z, but / again is a sound unknown in 
Zend, and in the Cuneiform Inscriptions,* in Japanese 
(at least some of its dialects) and in several American 
and African tongues.* 

It would be interesting to prepare more extensive 
statistics as to the presence and absence of certain 
letters in certain languages; nay, a mere counting of 
consonants and vowels in the alphabets of each nation 
might yield curious results. I shall here only mention 
a few :— 


Hindustani, which admits Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, 
and Turkish words, has 48 consonants, of which 13, 
however, are classical Sanskrit aspirates, nasals, and 
sibilants, and 14 Arabic letters. 

Sanskrit has 87 consonants, or, if we count the 
Vedic 1 and Lh, 389. 

Turkish, which admits Persian and Arabic words, 
has 82 consonants, of which only 25 are really 
Turkish. 


1 Boyce’s Grammar of the Kafir Language, ed. Davis, 1863, p. vii. 
The r exists in the Sechuana. The Kafirs pronounce / instead of r in 
foreign words; they have, however, the guttural trills. Cf. Appleyard, 
The Kajir Language, p. 49. 

2 The dialects of New Zealand, Rarotonga, Mangareva, Paumota, 
Tahiti, and Nukuhiva have 7; those of Fakaafo, Samoa, Tonga, and 
Hawai, have 7. See Hale, l.c. p. 232. 

> See Sir H. Rawlinson, Behistun, p. 146; Spiegel, Parst Gram- 
matik, p. 34. * Bindseil, p. 318; Pott, 2. c. xii. 453. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 181 


Persian, which admits Arabic words, has 31 con- 
sonants, of which 22 are really Persian, the rest 
Arabie. 

Arabic has 28 consonants. 

The Kafir (Zulu) has 26 consonants, besides the 
clicks. } | 

Hebrew has 23 consonants. 

English has 20 consonants. 

Greek has 17 consonants, of which 3 are compound. 

Latin has 17 consonants, of which 1 is compound. 

Mongolian has 17 or 18 consonants. 

Finnish has 11. 

Polynesian has 10 native consonantal sounds; no 
dialect has more—many have less.1 

Some Australian languages have 8, with three 
variations. 

The Melanesian languages are richer in consonants. 
The poorest, the Duauru, has 12; others 18, 14 and 
more.® 


Causes of Phonetic Change. 


One of the strangest facts with which the student 
of language is confronted, and for which, as far as 
possible, he has to account, is the change of letters, 
both vowels and consonants. In one sense the 
language of Tennyson is the same as that of Shake- 
speare, that of Shakespeare the same as that of Chaucer. 
that of Chaucer the same as that of Alfred; and yet, 


* Cf. Hale, p. 231; Von der Gabelentz, Abhandlungen der philo- 
logisch-historischen Classe der Kiniglich-Stichsischen Gesellschaft der 
Wissenschaften, vol. iii, p. 258. Leipzig, 1861. 

* Hale, p. 482. * See Von der Gabelentz, J. c. 


182 CHAPTER IV. 


when we see it written, the language of Alfred is so 
different that Tennyson himself would find it impossible 
to understand it. The same applies to all languages. 
Whether they have been reduced to writing, or 
whether they live only as spoken by the people, 
they all change, nay, we may add, they cannot help 
changing. 

When touching on the growth of language, as 
distinguished from the history of language,’ I pointed 
out as the main causes of this change Phonetic Decay 
and Dialectic Growth. Some scholars have objected to 
the name of Phonetic Decay, and, to avoid useless 
controversy, I am quite willing to call it Phonetic 
Variety or Change. Others have assigned different 
names to these two motive powers, distinguishing 
them as Successive Change and Parallel Variety, or 
in German, as Laut-wandel and Laut-wechsel. So long 
as these names are clearly defined, there is no objection 
to any one of them. Benfey” admitted, in addition, 
what he called grammatical change. This, however, 
is of a different character altogether. It is quite true 
that the change of div into deva and daiva, of lip into 
lecpo and leloipa, or of mensa into mensae may be 
called a change quite as much as that of hafoc into 
hawk. Butin all these cases the change has a purpose. 
It produces a change of meaning, and must be treated 
as intentional or dynamic. The changes, on the con- 
trary, of which we are here treating are not intentional, 
they are not meant to produce a change of meaning, 


* Vol.i. chap. 2. 
* Die Spaltung einer Sprache in mehrere lautverschiedene Sprachen, 
in Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft cu Gottingen, 1877, 24 Aug. 


Se 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 183 


and they require in consequence a totally different 
explanation. 


Difference between Phonetic Change and Dialectic Growth. 


Phonetic Change, which is generally, if not always, 
Phonetic Decay, is necessarily successive. Thus hawk 
presupposes A.S. hafoc, to lie presupposes A.S. licgan, 
and /éogan. And whatever may be said of the in- 
herent rights of language to shape words according 
to its own pleasure, we are perfectly justified in saying 
that dilwviwm was corrupted to deluge, that pipio 
was reduced to pigeon, and that sapius decayed and 
became sage. It is surely corruption or decay, if 
words like salvia and sapius can no longer be dis- 
tinguished, or when sonus, subundare, A.S. sund, 
swimming, and A.S. geswnd dwindle all down to 
sound. 

But whether we call this process decay or change, or, 
as some would prefer, growth and development, we can 
and ought to distinguish it very carefully from Dialectic 
Change or Growth. If we compare, for instance, the 
different dialects of Aryan speech, we ought not to 
treat modern German drei as a corruption of Gothic 
threis, nor Gothic threis as a corruption of Latin tres, 
nor Latin tres as a corruption of Greek treis, nor 
Greek treis as a corruption of Sanskrit trayas. All 
these are parallel, not successive forms, and no one 
can say which was before or after the other. The 
th in Gothic threis is as little a phonetic corruption of 
t, as t in Gothic twazi is a phonetic corruption of d in 
duo, or d in door a phonetic corruption of 6 in Greek 
thyra, or of f in foris. 


184, CHAPTER IV. 


No doubt, in many cases the Sanskrit form seems 
to us phonetically more primitive than corresponding 
forms in Greek, Latin, or Gothic. But the principle 
holds good nevertheless that they cannot be descended 
one from the other. It is quite true also that we often 
see the same change of letters produced by Phonetic 
Decay and by Dialectic Growth, but we shall see that 
nevertheless the principle of these two kinds of change 
is different. It is differentiation in Dialectic Growth, 
it is dissolution in Phonetic Decay. 


Dialectic Change. 


It was formerly the fashion to speak of a Proto- 
Aryan language from which Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, 
Teutonic, Slavonic, and Celtic were all derived, just 
as French was derived from Latin, or English from 
Anglo-Saxon. That theory, however, has hardly held 
its own for a longer time than the theory which it 
was meant to replace, namely that all Aryan languages 
were derived from Sanskrit. 

And yet there was some truth in that theory, if 
only rightly understood. To imagine that there was 
a settled Proto-Aryan language, as settled as Sanskrit, 
and that it became modified afterwards, according to 
strict phonetic rules, is, no doubt, impossible. That 
process can be studied to great advantage in the 
transition of Sanskrit into Prakrit dialects. But we 
have only to study languages, before they are reduced 
to writing, in order to see that the natural state of 
language is always dialectic, and dialectic, not in the 
sense in which Italian, Spanish, and French are 
dialects, derived from Latin, but as we often find in 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 185 


the smallest Polynesian island two or three dialects 
existing side by side, not one of which has a right to 
claim precedence before the others. 


Indifferentiated Letters. 


A very common feature in these spoken dialects is _ 
the uncertain character of their consonants and vowels. 
We imagine that in every language, whatever the 
number of letters may be, each letter must at all 
events be definite, a k, or a p, or a t, ag, ora b,orad. 
But that is not so. There are races, for instance, who 
are quite unable to distinguish, either in hearing or in 
speaking, between some of the most normal letters of 
our alphabet. Dr. Washington Mathews, in his 
description of the Hidatsas, whose language belongs 
to the Dacota stock, informs us that it is difficult to 
say whether they pronounce mia, wia, or bia for 
mother, dopa, nopa, lopa, or ropa for two. In the 
language of the Mohawks the word for man is written 
rongwe, longwe, ronkwe, or lonkwe.1 No two con- 
sonants seem to us more distinct than k and t. Never- 
theless, in the language of the Sandwich Islands, these 
two sounds run into one, and it seems next to im- 
possible for a foreigner to say whether what he hears 
is a guttural or a dental. Chamisso (Werke, ii. 76) 
states that in these islands & and ¢ have the same 
value, likewise v, /,and m; and he confesses (ii. 95) 
that though his ear was well schooled, he was always 
doubtful between d, dh, and s, between ch, k, and g. 
Thus we find that the same word is written by 


+ See Horatio Hale, ‘An Experiment in Phonetics, Journal of the 
Anthropological Institute, 1885, p. 236. 


186 CHAPTER IV. 


English missionaries with k, by French missionaries 
with ¢, and they both agree that it takes months of 
patient labour to teach a Hawaian youth the difference 
between k and t, g and d,l, n, and 7.1 When a boy 
is told to pronounce fish, he will say pihi, when told 
to repeat knife, he utters netpa. No wonder that 
under these circumstances the English word steel 
should appear in the Hawaian dictionary as kila. 
Double letters are not tolerated, hence st became t. 
No word ever ends in a consonant, hence final a had 
to be added; and ¢ being pronounced like k, steel was 
necessarily changed to kila.? 

Such a confusion between two prominent conso- 
nants like & and ¢ would destroy the very life of English. 
The distinction between carry and tarry, car and tar, 
key and tea, would simply be lost. Yet the Hawaian 
language struggles successfully against these disadvant- 
ages, and has stood the test of being used for a transla- 
tion of the whole Bible, without being found wanting. 

If we consider that 7+ is in many languages a 
guttural, and / a dental, we may place in the same 
category of wavering pronunciation the confusion 
between these two letters, r and J, a confusion re- 
marked not only in the Polynesian, but likewise in 
many of the African languages. Speaking of the 
Setchuana dialects, Dr. Bleek remarks: ‘One is jus- 
tified to consider r in these dialects as a sort of 
floating letter, and rather intermediate between J and 
7, than a decided 7 sound.’ 3 


* Chamisso, Works, vol. ii. p. 76. 
* Buschmann, Iles Marg. p. 103; Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. p. 188. 
* Mr, Powell, in his Introduction to the study of Indian Language 


a ll Ree ee 


PHONETIC CHANGE, 187 


It is this absence of differentiation in certain con- 
sonants which seems to me to account for several 
so-called phonetic changes in dialects of the same 
language, which otherwise would defy all principles 
of phonetics. We are told that the missionaries in 
Hawaii were so perplexed as to whether they ought © 
to write & or t, that at last they had to appeal to the 
king. The king decided in favour of k, and after 
that his own name, which Ellis, in his Polynesian 
Researches, wrote Tamehameha, was changed into 
Kamehameha, and has remained so ever since. 

Is it not clear, therefore, that if during a period 
when the pronunciation still wavered between & and 
t, certain families had migrated from Hawaii to other 
islands, two dialects might have arisen in time, the 
one without any k’s, the other without any ?’s? And 
yet it would be quite wrong to say that & had become 
t, or t had become & And is it not equally wrong 
therefore to say that because we find in Greek tettares, 
and in Sanskrit katvar, in Latin quatuor, therefore 
Greek t was changed into Sanskrit k, and into Latin 
gu, or vice versa ? 

I feel convinced therefore that the key to much 
of the phonetic diversity which we observe between 
Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and the other Aryan lan- 
guages must be looked for in a previous state of 
language, in which, as in the Polynesian dialects, the 
principal points of consonantal contact were not yet 
felt as definitely separated from each other. 

(second edition, Washington, 1880, p. 12) has fully treated of these 


sounds, which he calls synthetic sownds, and has pointed out their 
importance for phonological studies. 


188 CHAPTER IV. 


There is nothing to show that in thermés, Greek 
ever had an initial guttural, and to say that Sanskrit 
gh became Greek th, is in reality saying what is im- 
possible. No Sanskrit letter can become a Greek 
letter; in fact, no letter ever becomes. People pro- 
nounce letters, and they either pronounce them pro- 
perly or improperly. If the Greeks pronounced th in 
thermés properly, without any intention of pronounc- 
ing gh, then the th, instead of gh, requires another 
explanation, and I*cannot find a better one than the 
one just suggested. When we find three dialects, like 
Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, exhibiting the same word 
with guttural, dental, and labial initials, we gain but 
little if we say that Greek is a modification of San- 
skrit, or Latin of Greek. No Greek ever took the 
Sanskrit word and modified it; but all three received 
it from a common source, in which its articulation was 
as yet so vague as easily to lend itself to these various 
interpretations in different colonies. Though we do 
not find in any Greek dialect the same mixture of 
guttural and dental contact which exists in the 
Hawaian language, it is by no means uncommon to 
find one Greek dialect preferring the dental,t when 
another prefers the guttural; and I do not see how 
this fact can be explained, unless we assume that in 
an earlier or, as it is now called, a prehistoric state of 
the Greek language the pronunciation fluctuated or 
hesitated between k and ¢. 

I should prefer this explanation likewise in many 
cases when we see in cognate languages or dialects 


* Doric, méka, xa, GdAoxa, for dre, bre, GAAoTE; Doric, dydqos ; 
JMolic, yvédos ; Doric, 54 for 7. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 189 


an interchange between surd, sonant, and aspirated 
letters. To an educated ear these three varieties are 
not less marked than the three different points of con- 
tact in kh, t, and p. It is not only in such highly 
cultivated languages as Sanskrit and Greek that these 
three grades, tenuis, media, and aspirate, are used for - 
the differentiation of words. In the Dacota (Sioux) 
language, as the Rev. S. R. Riggs informs us, a clear 
distinction is made between b, p, and an emphatic p. 
The same applies to dental, guttural, and palatal let- 
ters. Thus be is to hatch, pe is sharp, and p’e is close. 
Da is to ask, ta moon, ?a to die. Simply to say that 
k becomes kh, and kh becomes g, seems again a de- 
fiance of all principles of phonetics; unless an ex- 
planation can be given how and why such successive 
changes should take place. 

The Rev. W. Ridley, in his grammatical outlines of 
the Kamilaroi, Dippil, and Turrinbad languages, spoken 
by Australian aborigines (‘New South Wales, 1866, 
p- 4), remarks: ‘They habitually soften the sound of 
their mutes, so that it is difficult to determine, in 
many instances, whether the consonant sound is 0 or 
p,dort,g ork. Mr. Curr, in his instructive work on 
the ‘Australian Race’ (Melbourne, 1886), tells us that 
the sounds represented by our letters f, s, @, and z do 
not exist in the languages of Australia; 7, g, and v are 
of rare occurrence, and probably absent in many. The 
sound of ch is absent in some, but abounds in others. 
The same applies to 7 as an initial, while as a final it 
is rolled out in some districts with great force and 
harshness. It is then so different from our own 7, 
that aboriginal names Yarr and Walgerr have been 


190 CHAPTER IV. 


written down as Yass and Walgett. ‘ In taking down 
vocabularies from the Blacks, he continues, ‘it is 
often difficult to decide whether certain sounds should 
be expressed by 0 or p, d or ¢, k or g, nor is it possi- 
ble, as far as my experience goes, to make the Blacks 
aware of these distinctions of sound.’' ‘No Poly- 
nesian dialect, says Mr. Hale, ‘makes any distinction 
between the sounds of b and p, d and ¢, g and k, l and 
r, or v and w.2 This is not a case, therefore, of 
phonetic corruption, of allowing an established &, t, p 
to sink down to g, d, b, or of simply suppressing the 
voice that was originally heard in g,d,6. It is a case 
analogous to what the Rev. John Batchelor observed 
among the Ainos.2 ‘7’? he writes, ‘is pronounced 
neither like ¢ nor d in English, but as something be- 
tween the two. The same may be said of p and 0,’ 

If colonies started to-morrow from any of these 
centres of language, what took place thousands of 
years ago, when the Hindus, Greeks, and Romans left 
their common home, would take place again. One 
colony would elaborate the indistinct, half-cuttural, 
half-dental articulation of their ancestors into a pure 
guttural; another into a pure dental; a third into 
a labial. One settlement would fix on the sonant, 
another on the surd consonants. The Romans who 
settled in Dacia, where their language still lives in 
the modern Wallachian, are said to have changed 
every gu, if followed by a, into p. They pronounce 

1 See also Australian Vocabulary, by G. F. Moore, 1843, p.x; Lawes, 
Grammar of Motu Language, p. vii. 

* Hale, Polynesian Grammar, p. 2338. 


3 Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary and Grammar, by the Rev. 
John Batchelor ; Tokyo, 1889. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 191 


aqua as apa; equa as epa.' Are we to suppose that 
the Italian colonists of Dacia said aqua as long as 
they stayed on Italian soil, and changed aqua into 
apa as soon as they reached the Danube? Or may 
we not rather appeal to the fragments of the ancient 
dialects of Italy, as preserved in the Oscan and Um- 
brian inscriptions, which show that in different parts 
of Italy certain words were from the beginning fixed 
differently, thus justifying the assumption that the 
legions which settled in Dacia came from localities 
in which these Latin qu’s had always been pro- 
nounced as p’s?? 

It will, no doubt, sound to many classical scholars 
almost like blasphemy to explain the phenomena in 
the language of Homer and Horace, by supposing for 
both a background like that of the Polynesian dialects 
of the present day. Some comparative philologists, 
too, will rather admit what is called a degeneracy of 
gutturals sinking down to dentals and labials, than 
look for analogies to the Sandwich Islands. Yet the 
most important point is, that we should have clear 
conceptions of the words we are using, and I confess 
that I cannot conceive how in the word for four a 
real & in Sanskrit could become ¢ in Greek, or ¢ in 


1 The Macedonian (Kutzo-Wallachian) changes pectus into keptu, 
pectine into keptine, Cf. Pott, Htym. F.ii.49. Of the Tegeza dialects, 
the northern entirely drops the p; the southern, in all grammatical ter- 
minations, either elide it or change it into k. Cf. Sir G. Grey’s Library, 
i.p. 159. In Sicilian dialects fiore and fiume appear as ciore and ciwe. 
Academy, 1871, p. 147. Some of these changes have been rightly 
explained as mere acoustic illusions, and as cases of metathesis 3 see 
Paul, Principien der Sprachgeschichte, p. 59. 

* The Oscans said pomtis instead of quinque, &c. See Mommsen, 
Unteritalische Dialecte, p, 289. 


192 CHAPTER IV. 


Greek degenerate into f in Gothic. I do not doubt 
the phonetic possibility,—for what is impossible in 
Phonetics? I doubt the historical reality of such 
changes. I can conceive different definite sounds 
arising out of one indefinite sound ; and those who have 
visited the Polynesian islands describe this fact as 
taking place at the present day. What then takes 
place to-day, can have taken place thousands of years 
ago; and if we see.the same word beginning in San- 
skrit, Greek, and Latin, with k, ¢, or p, it would be 
sheer timidity to shrink from the conclusion that 
there was a time in which that word was pronounced 
less distinctly ; in short, in the same manner as the k 
and ¢ in Hawaian. 

-I am glad to say that this distinction between 
Dialectic Change and Phonetic Corruption, and the 
account given by me of the nature of Dialectic Change 
many years ago, though strongly opposed at first, has 
been accepted by some of the most thoughtful students 
of language. Ineed only mention Mr. Horatio Hale, in 
his article ‘On some doubtful or intermediate Arti- 
culations’ in the Journal of the Anthropological Insti- 
tute, 1885, p. 283, and M. Maspero, in his essay on the 
‘Personal Pronouns in Egyptian’ in the Mémovres de 
la Société de Linguistique, Paris, 1872. Referring to 
the occurrence of k and ¢ in these pronouns, he 
writes :— 


‘La solution la plus raisonnable de ce probleme me parait 
étre celle que M. Max Miller propose, afin d’expliquer la pré- 
férence que certains dialectes indo-européens accordent a la 
dentale, dans la plupart des cas ot d’autres dialectes de la 
méme famille admettent la gutturale. Au lieu de supposer 


ee ee ee) 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 193 


une dégénérescence organique de l’articulation primitive, qui 
aurait permis & la gutturale de s’affaiblir en dentale, il faudrait 
supposer que Varticulation du pronon de la 2° personne flottait 
primitivement entre K et T. La prononciation ne séparalt 
nettement la gutturale de la dentale que pour attribuer 4 
chacune d’elles le rdle special que nous lui connaissons.’ 


Phonetic Idiosyncrasies. 


Tt must be conceded that single individuals or single 
families may sometimes influence the fates of a lan- 
guage. Personal defects in pronunciation, at first 
congenital, may spread by imitation, and in that case 
it would sometimes become very difficult to decide 
whether the effect should be treated as coming under 
the category of Phonetic Decay or of Dialectic Growth. 
We know that many people cannot pronounce /, and 
they say 7 or even m instead. They say grass or 
crowds instead of glass and clouds. I have heard 
ritten instead of little. Others change + to d, and say 
downd instead of vownd. Others change J to d, and 
say dong for long. The defects of infantine pronun- 
ciation also must not be forgotten, and we know how 
long some children will say tat for cat, tiss for kiss, &c. 

It cannot be denied that all this may tell and pro- 
duce phonetic changes, due, not so much to muscular 
laziness as to muscular inaptitude. | 

The Rev. W. G. Lawes tells us, in the second edition 
of his Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language 
spoken by the Motu Tribe (New Guinea), Sydney, 1888, 
that when he first went to Niue or Savage Island, the 
old men pronounced ¢ before 7 and e¢ as t, the children 
as ts, while, at a later visit, this infantine ts had become 
the general pronunciation. 

Il, 0 


194 CHAPTER IV. 


It should, however, be remembered, that in all 
these cases we can tell what is primitive, and what is 
recent, while we have no right to say that ¢ in Greek 
tessares is recent, simply because we find an initial 
euttural or labial in other Aryan languages. Even the 
fact that in this case the guttural is found in a larger 
number of Aryan languages than the dental, proves 
nothing as to its being more primitive than the 
dental. 

If an individual, or a family, or a tribe cannot pro- 
nounce a certain letter, or imagines it cannot pronounce 
it naturally, nothing remains but to substitute some 
other letter, as nearly allied to it as possible. The 
Romans, for instance, were by nature destitute of 
aspirated consonants. They had neither kh, th, ph, 
nor gh, dh, bh. There is no excuse whatever for 
supposing that they originally possessed these letters, 
and that they exchanged them afterwards for others. 
If phonetic experts can prove that the letters Ligaen 
and b, which we find in Latin when in Sanskrit we 
find gh, dh, bh, in Greek ch, th, and ph, require less 
effort, well and good. Only it does not follow that 
the Romans, or their most distant ancestors, ever made 
that effort and failed. As little as we can prove that — 
the Greeks ever said yepuds for Oepuds, because the 
Sanskrit has gharmds, can we postulate that the 
Romans ever said thormus, because the Greeks said 
Oepuds. These changes are due to dialectic variety, 
not to phonetic decay. f 

These idiosyncrasies have to be carefully studied, for 
each language has its own, and it would by no means 
follow that because a Latin / or even b corresponds to 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 195 


a Sanskrit dh, therefore every dh in every language 
may lapse into f or 6. | 

Greek has a strong objection to words ending in 
consonants; in fact, it allows but three consonants, and 
all of them hémtphona, to be heard as finals. We only 
find n, 7, and s, seldom k, at the end of Greek words... 
The Roman had no such scruples. His words end 
with a guttural tenuis, such as hic, nunc; with a 
dental tenuis, such as sunt, est; and he only avoids 
a final labial tenuis as not melodious. We can hardly 
imagine Virgil, in his hexameters, uttering such words 
as lwmp, trump, or stump. Such tendencies or dis- 
positions, peculiar to each nation, must exercise 
considerable influence on the phonetic structure of a 
language, particularly if we consider that in the Aryan 
family the grammatical lifeblood throbs chiefly in the 
final letters. 


Th and F. 


We know that th in English is a perfectly easy and 
legitimate sound, Its pronunciation comes quite 
natural toan Englishman. But it requires a consider- 
able effort on the part of most foreigners. It probably 
did so on the part of the Romans, when trying to 
speak Anglo-Saxon. Hence it happened that instead 
of th we sometimes find f, the dental instead of the 
labial aspirate. At first sight, such a change may 
seem very violent. J remember well, when Burnouf 
pointed out that the modern Persian name Feridun 
was a corruption of the Zend Thraétona, how several 
scholars doubted the possibility of such a change. 
But we have only to look at the diagrams of th and f 

O 2 


196 CHAPTER IV. 


to convince ourselves that the slightest movement of 
the lower lip towards the upper teeth would change 
the sound of th into f.1 Children sometimes begin with 
pronouncing f instead of th, nay it is often difficult 
to distinguish their f’s and th’s. In vulgar English, 
‘nothing’ sounds sometimes like ‘ nufjing, and ‘ had 
another’ is made to rhyme with ‘did not love her. ? 
In Russian we know that the Greek 6 appears as /, 
e.g. Feodor instead of Theodor. 

Now here we have 
clearly a case of pho- 
netic corruption. Th is 
right, f is wrong. Th 
came first, f came after- 
wards. But this cor- 
ruption is not due to 
economy of muscular 


Fig. 26. 


aN habits and poculianaee 
( on the part of foreigners 
thane ae who were forced by ex- 

(the dotted outline is th.) ternal circumstances to 
adopt a foreign language. Not being able to pro- 
nounce a sound which was strange to their buccal 


1 See M. M., On Veda and Zendavesta, p. 32. Arendt, Beitrdge zur 
vergleichenden Sprachforschung, i. p. 425. 

2 “On what principle is it that the Yorkshireman travelling between 
Huddersfield and Saddleworth reads the name of Slaithwaite station as 
Slawit, or that the Wriothesley family dwindles in the public mouth 
into the insignificance of Rockley?’ London Quarterly, Oct. 1864, 
p. 209. Bunyan’s rhymes prove that he must have pronounced daughter 
like dafter ; see Earle, Philology of the English Tongue, p. 127. 


PHONETIC CHANGE, 197 


organs, they took what lawyers call the ci-pres, the 
nearest approach. 

It is generally easy therefore 0 represent the 
process of this kind of phonetic corruption by 
anatomical diagrams, showing the natural transition 
from one position of the vocal organs to the other. - 
Thus it can be clearly perceived from the following 
diagram,’ how the Latin clamare requires complete 
contact between the root of the tongue and the soft 
palate, which contact is merged by sudden transition 
into the dental position of the tongue with a vibration 
of its lateral edges. In 
Italian this lateral vibra- 
tion of the tongue is dropt, 
or rather is replaced by the 
slightest possible approach 
of the tongue towards the 
palate, which follows al- 
most involuntarily on the 
opening of the guttural 
contact, producing chia- 
mare, instead of clamare. 
The Spaniard slurs over 
the initial cuttural contact 
altogether; hethinkshe has 
pronounced it, though his tongue has never risen, and 
he glides at once into the / vibration, the opening of 
which is followed by the same mouillé sound which 
we observed in Italian. 


Fisy27; 


Clamare, chiamare, llamar. 


* This diagram was drawn by Professor Richard Owen. 


198 CHAPTER IV. 


K and T. 

In some cases it is, no doubt, difficult to say why 
one letter should seem easier to pronounce than 
another. For instance, when a language possesses both 
the k and the ¢, it is difficult to see why in some words 
t should be changed into k. This case, however, is 
quite different from that of the indifferentiated letters 
of the Polynesian languages which we considered 
before. All we can say in this case is that to a certain 
class of people, the & contact must have appeared more 
natural, and that others imitated their peculiarity. 
The fact itself, however, cannot be doubted. In 
Canada the lower classes habitually pronounce ¢ as k, 
saying mékier and motkié for métier and mozteé! 
This cannot be due to the fact that in Canada French 
was a foreign language. For at home also the French 
language underwent the same corruption, chiefly 
among the lower classes. Thus Moliére in Le Médecion 
malgré lui, makes Jaqueline say hériquié instead of 
héritier. In the same play quarquié occurs for quar- 
tier, amiquié for anitié. M. Agnel, in his Observa- 
tions sur la prononciation et le langage rustique des 
environs de Paris, pp. 11, 28, testifies to the existence 
of the same corruption among the peasants near Paris 
and Havre, where charkier may be heard for charretier, 
abricokier for abricotier, crapu for trapu. In one 
case this corruption has affected even the classical 
French, for there seems to be a unanimous opinion 
that craindre stands for Latin tremere.* 

1 Student's Manual of the English Language (Marsh and Smith), 


p. 349. 
2 See also Metiviers, Dictionnaire Franco-normand, 1870, p. 5. The 


ee ee 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 199 


In all these cases, however, it should be remembered 
that the ¢ was there at first, and that its change to k 
was not due to differentiation, but to the phonetic idio- 
synerasies of certain individuals or certain classes. 

Lastly, there are some cases where it seems very 
doubtful whether the ear of some of our phonetic - 
authorities may not be as much at fault as the pro- 
nunciation of certain speakers. While in the cases 
before mentioned a real ¢ dwindled down to k, we are 
told by Webster, in the Introduction to his English 
Dictionary, that in English the letters cl are often 
pronounced like tl, e.g. tlear and tlean for clear and 
clean, and gl like dl, dlory for glory. Webster is, no 
doubt, a great authority, still I doubt the accuracy of 
this observation, at least among educated people. 


Cause of Phonetic Decay. 


We now come to the question, What is the cause of 
Phonetic Decay? For many years it was the custom 
among comparative philologists, when treating of 
phonetic changes, to say that s has become 7, or that 
m has been dropt, s has been elided, a and 7 have been 
contracted, ¢ softened, d hardened, &c. The question 
why letters should thus ‘change or become’ was 
never asked. Curtius comprehended all these pro- 
cesses under the name of Verwitterung, a meta- 
phorical expression taken from the decay which is 
produced by storm and weather, as if letters were 
things by themselves, exposed to external influences, 


King of Siam when speaking of maitri, the Buddhist word for love, 
mentioned that some Sanskrit scholars pronounced it maikree; see Mrs. 
A. H. Leonowens, The Governess at the Siamese Court, 1870, p. 197. 


200 CHAPTER IV. 


and liable to the ravages of time. I was the first, I 
believe, who ventured to ascribe phonetic change to 
its vera causa, namely, to a natural desire of econo- 
mising muscular exertion, to a vis inertiae, or, in 
simpler language, to human laziness. 

Every letter requires more or less of muscular 
exertion. There is a manly, sharp, and definite 
articulation, and there is an effeminate, vague, and 
indistinct utterance. The one requires a will, the 
other is a mere laisser-aller. The chief cause of 
phonetic degeneracy in language is when people 
shrink from the effort of: articulating each consonant 
and vowel; when they attempt to economise their 
breath and their muscular energy, when they lay con- 
siderable stress on one syllable, and in consequence 
slur over the rest. It is perfectly true that, for 
practical purposes, the shorter and easier a word, the 
better, as long as it conveys its meaning distinctly. 
Most Greek and Latin words are twice as long as they 
need be, and I do not mean to find fault with the 
Romanic nations, for having simplified the labour of 
speaking. If the provincial of Gaul came to say 
pere instead of pater, it was simply because he 
shrank from the trouble of lifting his tongue, and 
pushing it against his teeth. Pere required less 
strain on the will, and less expenditure of breath : 
hence it took the place of pdtrem. So in English, 
night requires less expenditure of muscular energy 
than ndcht or Nacht, as pronounced in Scotland and 
in Germany; and hence, as people always buy in 
the cheapest market, night found more customers 
than the more expensive terms. Nearly all the 


Te 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 201 


changes that have taken place in the transition from 
Anglo-Saxon to modern English belong to this class. 
Thus :— 


A.S. hafoe became hawk A.S. niwiht became nought 
» deg 3 day poehilatord 2s lord 
Beles Ol bn as fair ,» hléfdige ,, lady 
SOCIO aI! os, Say »  séelig ns silly 
smrsprecan —,, speak » biton rf but 
Bertolpian * follow »  héafod ee shead 
» morgen ,, morrow 5 nose-pyrel ,, nostril 
PE eacynine. 5; king »  wWwif-man _,, woman 
saeworuld. =,, world! 5, Hofor-wic ,, York 


The same took place in Latin or French words 
naturalised in English. Thus :— 


Scutarius esculer = squire 
Historia histoire = story 
Egyptianus Egyptian = gipsy 
Extraneus estrangier = stranger 
Hydropsis —— = dropsy 
Capitulum chapitre = chapter 
Dominicella demoiselle = damsel 
Paralysis paralysie = palsy 
Sacristanus sacristain = sexton 


The best illustrations of the progress of phonetic 
decay are no doubt to be found in modern languages, 
such as the Romanic dialects in Europe, and the Pra- 
krit dialects in India. But the same process was 
going on in ancient languages also. Thus the Latin 
quintus stands for quinctus, just as Ital. santo stands 


' Old High-German wér-alt=seculum, i.e. Menschenalter. Shake- 
speare in The Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 4, 36, speaks of ‘ the super- 
stitious idle-headed eld.’ Cf. wérwulf, lycanthropus, werewolf, wihr- 
wolf, lowp-garou(l); were-gild, mann-geld, ransom, Cf. Grimm, 
Dentsche Grammatik, ii. 480. 

* See Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. i. p. 186. 


202 CHAPTER IV. 


for sanctus. Umbrian mestrw shows phonetic cor- 
ruption more advanced than Italian maestro for 
magister. Umbrian deztw and fetw for dicito and 
facito represent but the first step which in the end 
led to Italian dite and fatte. 

There are, no doubt, some words in English which, 
if compared with their originals in Anglo-Saxon,seem 
to have added to their bulk, and thus to violate the 
general principle of simplification. Thus A.S. thwnor 
is in English thunder. Yet here, too, the change is 
due to laziness. It requires more exertion to with- 
draw the tongue from the teeth without allowing the 
opening of the dental contact to be heard than to slur 
from 7 on to d, and then only to the following vowel. 
The same expedient was found out by other languages. 
Thus, the Greek preferred to say dndres, instead of 
aneres; ambrosia, instead of amrosia.1 The French 
genre is more difficult to pronounce than gendre; 
hence the English gender, with its anomalous d. 
Similar instances in English are, to slumber =A.S. 
slumerian; embers=A.S. émyrian; humble = hu- 
mus. 

Euphony. 


It was formerly the custom of grammarians to 
ascribe these and similar changes to ewphony, or a 
desire to make words agreeable to the ear, the real 
object being to make them agreeable to the mouth— 


1 In Greek p cannot stand before A and p, nor A before p, nor v before 
any liquid. Hence peonu(e)pla = peonuBpia ; yaupos =yauBpés ; Auaptov 
=7uBpotov ; woptés=Bpotrds. See Mehlhorn, Giriechische Grammatik, 
p- 54. In Tamil nr is pronounced ndr. Caldwell, Dravidian Gram- 
mar, p. 188, 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 208 


that is to say, to save a certain amount of muscular 
effort. Greek, for instance, it was said, abhors two 
aspirates at the beginning of two successive syllables, 
because the repeated aspiration would offend delicate 
ears. Ifa verb in Greek, beginning with an aspirate, 
has to be reduplicated, the first syllable takes the 
tenuis instead of the aspirate. Thus thé in Greek 
forms tithémi, as dha in Sanskrit dadhami. If this 
were done simply for the sake of euphony, it would 
be difficult to account for many words in Greek far 
more inharmonious than thtthémz. Such words as 
xbév, chthon, earth, pOdyyos, phthdgqgos, vowel, begin- 
ning with two aspirates, were surely more objection- 
able than thithémi would have been. There is nothing 
to offend our ears in the Latin fefelli,1 from fallo, or 
in the Gothic reduplicated perfect hachald, from hal- 
dan, which in English is contracted into held,the A.S. 
being hedld, instead of hehold ; or even in the Gothic 
faifahum, we caught, from fahan, to catch.* There 
is nothing fearful in the sound of fearful, though both 
syllables begin with an f’ But if it be objected that 


1 Tt should be remarked that the Latin f, though not an aspirated 
tenuis like #, but a labial flatus, seems to have had a very harsh sound. 
Quintilian, when regretting the absence in Latin of Greek ¢ and v, says, 
‘Que si nostris literis (f et w) scribantur, surdum quiddam et bar- 
barum efficient, et velut in locum earum succedent tristes et horrid 
quibus Grecia caret. Nam et illa que est sexta nostratium (/) pene 
non humana voce, vel omnino non voce potius, inter discrimina dentium 
efflanda est ; que etiam cum vocalem proxima accipit, quassa quodam- 
modo utique quoties aliquam consonantem frangit, ut in hoc ipso frangit, 
multo fit horridior’ (xii. 10).—Cf. Bindseil, p. 287. 


r Pres. Perf. Sing. Perf. Plur. Part. Perf. Pass. 
Goth. haita haihait haihaitum haitan 
A.S. hatan héht (hét) héton haten 


O.E. hate hight highten hoten, hoot, hight. 


204 CHAPTER IV. 


all these letters in Latin and Gothic are mere breath- 
ings, while the Greek x, 0, @ are real aspirates, we 
have in German such words as Pfropfenzieher, which 
to German ears is anything but an unpleasant sound. 
I believe the real cause of this so-called abhorrence in 
Greek is nothing but laziness. An aspirate requires 
great effort, though we are hardly aware of it, begin- 
ning from the abdominal muscles and ending in the 
muscles that open the glottis to its widest extent. It 
was in order to economise this muscular energy that 
the tenuis was substituted for the aspirate, though, of 
course, in cases only where it could be done without 
destroying the significancy of language. Euphony is 
a very vague and unscientific term. Each nation 
considers its own language, each tribe its own dialect, 
euphonic; and there are but few languages which 
please our ear, when heard for the first time. To 
my ear knight does not sound better than Knecht, 
though it may do so to an English ear; but there can 
be no doubt that it requires less effort to pronounce 
the English knight than the German Knecht. 

A desire for euphony seems to me in most cases but 
a disguised desire for a saving of muscular exertion, 
what is disagreeable to the ear being disagreeable to 
the voice also. There is no objection, however, to 
admit euphony as one of the less direct causes of pho- 
netic change. Thus the recurrence of the same letter 
in two successive syllables is often avoided, possibly 
for the sake of euphony, possibly for the sake of ease. 
There can be no doubt, for instance, that the two 
Latin derivatives aris and alis are one and the same. 
If we derive Saturnalis from Saturnus, and secularis 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 205 


from seculum, normalis from norma, regularis from 
regula, astralis from astrwm, stellaris from stella, it is 
clear that the suffix in all is the same. Yet there is 
some kind of rule which determines whether alis or 
aris is to be preferred. If the body of the words 
contains an /, the Roman preferred the termination 
aris; hence secularis, regularis, stellaris, the only 
exceptions being that / is preserved (1) when there is 
also an 7 in the body of the word, and this 7 closer to 
the termination than the 7; hence pluralis, lateralis ; 
(2) when the / forms part of a compound consonant, 
as fluvialis, glaccalis.! The same explanation must 
probably be given for coeruleus from coelwm, for 
kephalargia and lethargia by the side of otalgia. 

All these are changes dependent on a dislike of the 
repetition of the same letter. But there are other 
changes of ¢ into r which it would be difficult to 
assign to euphony only, e.g. colonel, pronounced cuwr- 
mel (Old French, coronel; Spanish coronel); ros- 
signole = lusciniola.2 The Wallachian dor, desire, 
is supposed to be the same word as the Italian duolo, 
pain. In apétre, chapitre, esclandre, the same change 
of / into 7 has taken place.? 

On the other hand, 7 appears as / in Italian albero = 
arbor; celebro = cerebrum; mercoledi, Mercurii dies; 
pellegrino, pilgrim = peregrinus.* 

If certain scholars prefer to ascribe the change 
between two vowels of s into 7 in Latin, and the 


' Cf. Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, 1st edit. ii. 97, where some 
exceptions, such as legalis, letalis, are explained. 

* See Corssen, Kritische Nachtrége, p. 86. 

* Diez, Vergleichende Grammatix, i. p.189.  * Diez, lc. p. 209. 


206 CHAPTER IV. 


dropping of s in Greek under the same circumstances, 
to a desire for euphony rather than to an economy 
of muscular energy, I see no objection, if only it is 
clearly understood that such changes are never in- 
tentional, but simply mechanical. To us it may seem 
as easy to say genesis as generis, yeveros as yeéveos and 
yevouvs. But we must remember that the nerves and 
muscles employed in speaking may assume certain 
habits and tendencies in each individual by imitation, 
and by inheritance in whole families and nations, 
and that what is easy and natural for pronunciation 
must be determined, in each case, by such habits and 
tendencies. 


Phonetic Habits. 


Though I have lived much longer in England 
than in Germany, and spoken more English than 
German, yet even now, after lecturing for one hour 
in English, the muscles of my throat feel tired, my 
throat becomes heated and dry, while in Germany 
I could lecture for two and three hours without any 
such feeling. What does this show? It shows that 
with me the combination of sounds peculiar to 
English requires a greater muscular effort, a greater 
exertion of will, than the usual run of sounds in 
German; but it does not prove that in themselves 
English sounds are more difficult to pronounce than 
German. Habit, whether self-formed or inherited, 
forms here as elsewhere ‘lines of least resistance,’ 
and these lines of least resistance determine what 
seems easy or difficult to pronounce in every lan- 


guage. 


PHONETIC CHANGE, 207 


Double Consonants. 


We have still to treat of one other cause of Phonetic 
Decay, namely Double Consonants. Certain con- 
sonants, if they come together without intervening 
vowels, are troublesome to pronounce, particularly at . 
the beginning of words. Hence they are very hable 
to phonetic decay, either by being assimilated, or by 
one of these being dropt. But if it is the tendency of 
most languages to avoid or soften these troublesome 
combinations, we must not shirk the question, how 
it ever came to pass that such troublesome groups were 
framed and sanctioned. Strange as it may seem, I 
believe that these troublesome combinations of con- 
sonants were likewise the result of phonetic corruption, 
i.e. of muscular relaxation. Most of them owe their 
origin to contraction, that is to say, to an attempt to 
pronounce two syllables as one, and thus to save time 
and breath, though not without paying for it by an 
increased consonantal effort. 

It has been argued, with some plausibility, that 
language in its original state, of which, unfortunately, 
we know next to nothing, eschewed the contact of 
two or more consonants. There are languages still in 
existence in which each syllable consists either of a 
vowel, or of a vowel preceded by one consonant only, 
and in which no syllable ever ends ina consonant. This 
is the case, for instance, in the Polynesian languages. A 
Hawaian finds it almost impossible to pronounce two 
consonants together, and in learning English he has 
likewise the greatest difficulty in pronouncing cad, or 
any other word ending in a consonant. Cab, as pro- 


208 CHAPTER ITV. 


nounced by a Hawaian, becomes caba. Mr. Hale, in 
his excellent ‘ Polynesian Grammar, ! says :— 


In all the Polynesian dialects every syllable must terminate 
in a vowel; and two consonants are never heard without a 
vowel between them. This rule admits of no exception what- 
ever, and it is chiefly to this peculiarity that the softness of 
these languages is to be attributed. The longest syllables have 
only three letters, a consonant and a diphthong, and many 
syllables consist of a single vowel. 


There are other languages besides the Polynesian, 
which never admit closed syllables, i.e. syllables 
ending in consonants. All syllables in Chinese are 
open or nasal,’ yet it is by no means certain whether 
the final consonants which have been pointed out in 
the vulgar dialects of China are to be considered as 
later additions, or whether they represent a more 
primitive state of the Chinese language. 

In South Africa all the members of the great 
family of speech, called by Dr. Bleek the Ba-ntu 
family, agree in general with regard to the simplicity 
of their syllables. Their syllables can begin with 
only one consonant, including, however, consonantal 
diphthongs, nasalised consonants, and combinations of 
clicks with other consonants reckoned for this pur- 
pose as substantially simple. The semi-vowel w, too, 
may intervene between a consonant and a following 
vowel. No syllable, as a general rule, in these South 
African languages, which extend north beyond the 
equator, can end in a consonant, but only in vowels, 


1 Hale, J. ¢. p. 234. 
* Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, p. 112. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 209 


whether pure or nasal.! The exceptions serve but 
to prove the rule, for they are confined to cases where 
by the falling off of the generally extremely short 
and almost indistinct terminal vowel, an approach 
has been made to consonantal endings.” 

In the other family of South African speech, the 
Hottentot, compound consonants are equally eschewed 
at the beginning of words. It is clear, too, that all 
radical words ended there originally in vowels, and 
that the final consonants are entirely due to gram- 
matical terminations, such as », s, ts, and 7. By the 
frequent use of these suffixes the final vowel dis- 
appeared, but that it was there originally has been 
proved with sufficient evidence.? 

The permanent and by no means accidental or in- 
dividual character of these phonetic peculiarities is 
best seen in the treatment of foreign words. Practice 
willno doubt overcome the difficulty which a Hawaian 
feels in pronouncing two consonants together, or in 
ending his words by consonantal checks, and I have 
myself heard a Mohawk articulating his labial letters 
with perfect accuracy. Yet if we examine the foreign 
words adopted by the people into their own vocabu- 
lary, we shall easily see how they have all been placed 
on a bed of Procrustes. In the Ewe, a West-African 
language, school is pronounced suku, the German Fen- 
ster (window) fesre.4 

* Bleek, Comparative Grammar, § 252; Appleyard, Kafir Language, 
3 Sea Comparative Grammar, § 257; Hahn, Herero Grammar, 
§ 3. 


> Bleek, Comparative Grammar, § 257-60. 
* Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 56. 


1g & le 


210 CHAPTER IV. 


In the Kafir language we find bapitizesha = to baptize 


” 9 igolide = gold 

»” ” inkamela = camel 

” ” ibere = bear 

” ” umperisite = priest 

” 5 ikerike == kirk 

” » umposile = apostle 
» isugile = sugar 


9 % ama-Ngezi = English’ 


If we look to the Finnish and the whole Uralic 
class of the Northern Turanian languages, we meet 
with the same disinclination to admit double conso- 
nants at the beginning, or any consonants whatever 
at the end of words. The German Glas is written 
last in Finnish. The Swedish smak is changed into 
maku, stor into swuri, strand into ranta. No genuine 
Finnish word begins with a double consonant, for the 
assibilated and softened consonants, which are spelt 
as double letters, were originally simple sounds. This 
applies equally to the languages of the Esths, Ostiakes, 
Hungarians, and Syrjanes, though, through their in- 
tercourse with Aryan nations, these tribes, and even 
the Fins, succeeded in mastering such difficult groups 
as pr, sp, st, str, &e. The Lap, the Mordvinian, and 
Tcheremissian dialects show, even in words which are 
of native growth, though absent in the cognate dia- 
lects, initial consonantal groups such as kr, ps, st, &e. ; 
but such groups are always the result of secondary 
formation, as has been fully proved by Professor 
Boller.2 The same careful scholar has shown that 


1 Appleyard, Kafir Language, p. 89. 
? Boller, Die Finnischen Sprachen, p.19. Pott, l. ec. pp. 40 and 56. 
See also Boehtlingk, Ueber die Sprache der Jakuten, § 152. ‘The Turko- 


PHONETIC CHANGE. AM 


the Finnish, though preferring syllables ending in 
vowels, has admitted n, s, 2, 7, and even ¢, as final 
consonants. The Esthonian, Lapponian, Mordvinian, 
Ostiakian, and Hungarian, by dropping or weakening 
their final and unaccented vowels, have acquired a 
large number of words ending in simple and double 
consonants ; but throughout the Uralic class, wherever 
we can trace the radical elements of language, we 
always find simple consonants and final vowels. 

We arrive at the same result, if we examine the 
syllabie structure of the Dravidian class of the South 
Turanian languages, the Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, 
Malayalam, &c. The Rev. R. Caldwell, in his excel- 
lent work, the ‘ Dravidian Comparative Grammar,’ has 
treated this subject with the same care as Professor 
Boller in his Essay on the Finnish languages, and we 
have only to place these accounts by the side of each 
other, in order to perceive the most extraordinary 
coincidences. 


The chief peculiarity of Dravidian syllabation is its extreme 
simplicity and dislike of compound or concurrent consonants ; 
and this peculiarity characterises the Tamil, the most early 
cultivated member of the family, in a more marked degree 
than any other Dravidian language. 

In Telugu, Canarese, and Malayalam, the great majority of 
Dravidian words, 1.e. words which have not been derived from 
Sanskrit, or altered through Sanskrit influences, and in Tamil 
all words without exception, including even Sanskrit deriva- 
tives, are divided into syllables on the following plan. Double 
or treble consonants at the beginning of syllables, like ‘stv,’ 
in ‘strength,’ are altogether inadmissible. At the beginning 


Tataric languages, the Mongolian, and Finnish show a strong aversion 
to double consonants at the beginning of words.’ 


P 2 


2b. CHAPTER IV. 


not only of the first syllable of every word, but also of every 
succeeding syllable, only one consonant is allowed. If in the 
middle of a word of several syllables, one syllable ends with a 
consonant and the succeeding one commences with another 
consonant, the concurrent consonants must be euphonically 
assimilated, or else a vowel must be inserted between them. 
At the conclusion of a word, double and treble consonants, 
like ‘ gth,’ in ‘strength,’ are as inadmissible as at the beginning; 
and every word must terminate in Telugu and Canarese in a 
vowel; in Tamil, either in a vowel or in a single semivowel, 
as ‘1,’ or ‘r,’ or ina single nasal, as ‘n,’ or ‘m.’ It is obvious 
that this plan of syllabation is extremely unlike that of the 
Sanskrit. 

Generally, ‘1’ 1s the vowel which is used for the purpose of 
separating inadmissible consonants, as appears from the manner 
in which Sanskrit derivatives are Tamilised. Sometimes ‘u’ 
is employed instead of ‘i... Thus the Sanskrit preposition 
‘pra’ is changed into ‘pira’ in the compound derivatives, 
which have been borrowed by the Tamil; whilst ‘Krishna’ 
becomes ‘Kirutfina-n’ (‘tt’ instead of ‘sh’), or even 
‘Kiftina-n.’ Even such soft conjunctions of consonants as 
the Sanskrit ‘dya,’ ‘dva,’ ‘gya,’ &c., are separated in Tamil 
into ‘diya,’ ‘diva,’ and ‘ giya.’ 1 

The Semitic languages are quite free from words 
beginning with two consonants without an inter- 
mediate vowel or shewa. ‘This is, in fact, considered 
by Ewald as one of the prominent characters of the 
Semitic family ;? and if foreign words like Plato 
have to be naturalised in Arabic, the » has to be 
changed to /, for Arabic, as we saw, has no p, and an 
initial vowel must be added, thus changing Platon 
into [flatin. 

It is hardly to be wondered at that evidence of this 
kind, which might be considerably increased, should 


' Caldwell, Dravidian Comparative Grammar, p. 188. 
* Ewald, Gramm. Arabica, i. p. 23; Pott, Htym. Forsch. ii. 66. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 213 


have induced speculative scholars to look upon the 
original elements of language as necessarily consist- 
ing of open syllables, of one consonant followed by 
one vowel, or of a single vowel. The fact that lan- 
guages exist, in which this simple structure has been 
preserved, is certainly important, nor can it be denied, © 
that out of such simple elements languages have been 
formed, gradually advancing, by a suppression of 
vowels, to a state of strong consonantal harshness. 
The Tcheremissian sma, mouth, if derived from a 
root su, to speak, must originally have been swma. 

In the Aryan languages, the same process can 
easily be observed as producing the same effect, viz. 
double consonants, either at the beginning or at the 
end of words. It was in order to expedite the 
pronunciation of words that vowels were dropt, and 
consonants brought together: it was to facilitate the 
pronunciation of such words that one of the conso- 
nants was afterwards left out, and new vowels were 
added to render the pronunciation easier once more. 

Thus, to know points back to Sk. gfia, but this gia, 
the Lat. gndé in gndvi, or gnd in Gr. égnon, again 
points back to gan, contracted to gid. Many roots 
are formed by the same process, and they generally 
express a derivative idea. Thus gan, which means 
to create, to produce, and which we find in Sk. ganaz, 
Gr. génos, genus, kin, is raised to gan& and g fia, in 
order to express the idea of being able to produce. 
If I am able to produce music, I know music; if I am 
able to produce ploughing, I know how to plough, I 
can plough; and hence the frequent running together 
of the two conceptions, I can and I know, Ich kann 


214, CHAPTER IV. 


and Ich kenne, Je sais and Je peux! As from gan 
we have gfia, so from man, to think (Sk. manas, Gr. 
ménos, mens, mind), we have mna, to learn by heart, 
Greek mémnémai, Lremember, mimnéesko. In modern 
pronunciation the m is dropt, and we pronounce 
m-nemonics. Again, we have in Sanskrit a root mlai, 
which means to fade; from it mldna, faded, m]ani, 
fading. Now, whence this initial double consonant 
ml? The Sanskrit root mlai or mla& is formed 
like gi& and mnA, from a simpler root mal or mar, 
which means to wear out, to decay. As gan became 
gia, so mar, mra. This mar is a very prolific root, 
of which more hereafter, and was chiefly used in the 
sense of decaying or dying, morior, dp(B)pdova, Old 
Slav. mréti, to die, Lith. mirtz, to die. 

These instances will suffice in order to show that 
in Sanskrit, too, and in the Aryan languages in 
general, the initial double consonants owe their 
existence to the same tendency which afterwards 
leads to their extinction. It was phonetic economy 
that reduced mara to mra; it was phonetic economy 
that reduced mra to ra and 1a. 

The double consonants being once there, the 
simplest process would seem to be to drop one of the 
two. This happens frequently, but by no means 
always. We see this process in English words such 
as knight, A.S. eniht; knife, A. 8. cnif; knee, A. S. 
enéo; to leap, A. 8. hléapan; ring, A. 8S. hring. We 
likewise observe it in Latin natus instead of gnatus, 
nodus instead of gnodus, English knot. We know 


' Pott (#. F. ii. 291) compares queo and scio, tracing them to San- 
skrit ki. See Benfey, Kurze Sanskrit Grammatik, § 62; note. ; 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 215 


that the old Latin form of locus was stlocus,) thus 
pointing to root std, whence the German Stelle; we 
know that instead of zs, itis, quarrel, litigation, the 
ancient Romans pronounced stlis, which has been 
compared with German streit. In all these cases the 
first consonant or consonants were simply dropt. 
Sometimes, however, a vowel is added again to 
facilitate the pronunciation. Many words in Latin 
begin with sc, st, sp. Some of these are found in 
Latin inscriptions of the fourth century after Christ 
spelt with an initial7: e.g. im istatwam (Orelli, 1,120, 
A.D. 875); Ispiritus (Mai, Coll. Vat. t. v. p. 446, 8).? 
It seems that the Celtic nations were unable to pro- 
nounce the initial s before a consonant, or at least 
that they disliked it.2 The Spaniards, even when 
reading Latin, pronounce estudiwm for studium, 
eschola for schola.* Hence the constant addition of 
the initial vowel in the Western or chiefly Celtic 


a CQuintil. i. 4, 16. 

2 See Crecelius, in Hoefer’s Zeitschrift, iv. 166 ; Corssen, Aussprache, 
p-i. p. 289, 

3 Richards, Antique Lingue Britannice Thesaurus (Bristol, 1753), 
as quoted by Pott, #. /. ii. 67, says (after letter S); ‘No British word 
begins with s, when a consonant or w follows, without setting y before 
it; for we do not say Sgubor, snoden, &c., but Ysgubor, ysnoden, 
And when we borrow any words from another language which begin 
with an s and a consonant immediately following it, we prefix a y 
before such words, as from the Latin schola, ysgol; spiritus, yspryd ; 
scutum, ysgwyd.’ 

4 Tschudi, Peru, i.176. Caldwell, Dravidian Comparative Gram- 
mar, p. 170: ‘How perfectly in accordance with Tamil this is, is known 
to every European resident in Southern India, who has heard the natives 
speak of establishing an English iskool.’ This iskool is as good as 
establishing for stabilire ; or the Italian expressions, con istudio, per 
istrada, &c. ‘Tl en est de méme des mots germaniques devenus fran- 
gais, ainsi: stock, estoc; skarp, escarpé; skiff, esquif, &c.’—Terrien 
Poncel, Du Langage, p. 64. 


216 CHAPTER IV. 


branch of the Romanic family; French escabeau, 
instead of Latin scabellum ; estame (étaim), Latin sta- 
men; espérer, instead of Latin sperare. Then again, 
as it were to revenge itself for the additional trouble 
caused by the initial double consonant, the French 
language throws away the s which had occasioned 
the addition of the initial e, but keeps the vowel 
which, after the loss of the s, would no longer be 
wanted. Thus spada became espée, lastly épée ; scala 
became eschelle, lastly échelle. Stabilive became 
establir, lastly établir, to stablish.! 


Different causes for Phonetic and Dialectic Change. 


Now it must be clear that all these changes which 
we have examined, whether due to economy of mus- 
cular exertion, or to what is called euphony, or to 
phonetic idiosyncrasies, rest on principles totally dis- 
tinct from those which made the Romans pronounce 
the same word as guatuor which we pronounce fowr. 
The transition from Gothie fidwér to English four, 
of Latin quatuor to French quatre, may properly be 
ascribed to phonetic corruption, but guatuor and jid- 
wor together can only be explained as the result of 
dialectic variation. If we compare quatuor, téssares, 
pésyres, and fidwér, we find a change of guttural, 
dental, and labial contact in one and the same word. 
There is nothing to show that the Greeks, or even 
their most distant Aryan ancestors, ever changed the 
guttural into the dental contact, or that the Teutonic 
nations ever considered the labial contact less difficult 
than the guttural and dental. We cannot show that 

* Diez, Grammatik, i. p. 224. 


PHONETIC CHANGE, a 


in Greece the guttural dwindles down to a dental, or 
that in German the labial is later, in chronological 
order, than the guttural. We must look upon gut- 
tural, dental, and labial as ‘three different phonetic 
expressions of the same general conception, not as 
corruptions of one definite original type. That which ~ 
is not yet differentiated may grow and break forth in 
many different forms; that which has become differ- 
entiated and definite, loses its capability of unbounded 
development, and its changes assume a downward 
tendency and must be considered as decay. 


Laws of Phonetic Change. 


What distinguishes phonetic from dialectic changes 
is that the former can be reduced to very strict rules, 
while the latter can not, at least not with the same 
unerring certainty. Phonetic decay, being due to a 
relaxation of muscular energy, admits of a simple 
physiological explanation, and depends on causes 
which are always the same. It is wrong, no doubt, 
to speak of phonetic laws in the same sense in which 
we speak of the law of gravitation. Phonetic laws 
can be no more than rules which are obeyed uni- 
formly, unless there is a cause sufficient to disturb 
them. It would be more correct therefore to speak of 
phonetic rules or of similarities in phonetic change. 
But the habit of speaking of phonetic laws has be- 
come so general that it would be very difficult now 
to change it. It stands to reason that the phonetic 
changes which are due to one and the same cause, 
namely muscular relaxation, must, unless there is a 


218 CHAPTER IV. 


complete change of circumstances, be uniform and 
free from all exceptions. And this is so, not only in 
what may be called classical or well-regulated lan- 
guages, but likewise in spoken dialects, which have 
as yet no literary standards. 

In the growth of the modern Romanic languages out 
of Latin, we can perceive not only a general tendency 
to simplification, not only a natural disposition to avoid 
the exertion which the pronunciation of certain con- 
sonants, and still more, of groups of consonants, en- 
tails on the speaker: but we can discover tendencies 
peculiar to each of the Romanie dialects, and laws so 
strict as to enable us to say, that in French, and in 
French only, the Latin patrem would by necessity 
dwindle down to the modern pére. The final m is 
always dropped in the Romanic dialects, and it was 
dropped even in Latin. Thus we get patre instead of 
patrem. Now, a Latin ¢ between two vowels in such 
words as pater is invariably suppressed in French. 
Whether we call this a law, or a rule, or a tendency, 
certain it is that it admits of no exception. By means 
of it we can say a priort that Latin catena must in 
French become chaine; fata, a later feminine repre- 
sentation of the old neuter fatwm, fée; pratwm, a 
meadow, pré. From pratum we derive prataria, 
which in French becomes prairie; from fatum, fa- 
taria, the English fairy. Thus every Latin participle 
in atus, like amatus, loved, must end in French in @. 
The same law then changed patre (pronounced 
patere) into paere, or péere; it changed matrem into 
mere, fratrem into frére. These changes take place 
gradually, but irresistibly; and, what is most im- 


PHONETIC CHANGE, 219 


portant, they are completely beyond the reach or 
control of the free will of man. 

Dialectic growth is equally beyond the control of 
individuals, but it does not submit to quite so strict 
and general rules. The acceptance of peculiar pro- 
nunciation, or of a dialectic word, or of a newly- - 
invented term, or of a peculiar grammatical form, 
depends on the pleasure of the majority far more than 
on the zeal of a single poet, or the exertions of a few 
srammarians. Phonetic changes of this kind are 
often the cause of grammatical changes. They can 
be accounted for after they have taken place, but 
they cannot be predicted with the same unvarying 
certainty as the phonetic changes due to muscular 
relaxation. Granted, for instance, that the loss of 
the Latin terminations was the natural result of a 
more careless pronunciation; granted that the modern 
sion of the French genitive dw is a natural corruption 
of the Latin de illo—yet the choice of de, instead of 
any other word, to express the genitive, the choice of 
illo, instead of any other pronoun, to express the 
article, could never have been predicted. No single 
individual could deliberately have set to work in 
order to abolish the old Latin genitive, and to replace 
it by the periphrastic compound de «lo. It was 
necessary that the inconvenience of having no distinct 
or distinguishable sign of the genitive should have 
been felt by the people at large who spoke a vulgar 
Latin dialect. It was necessary that the same people 
should have used the preposition de in such a manner 
as to lose sight of its original local meaning altogether 
(for instance, wna de multis, in Horace, i.e. one out of 


220 CHAPTER IV. 


many). It was necessary,again, that the same people 
should have felt the want of an article, and should 
have used <//o in numerous expressions, where it 
seemed to have lost its original pronominal power. 
Tt was necessary that all these conditions should be 
given, before one individual, and after him another, 
and after him hundreds and thousands and millions, 
could use de zlo as the exponent of the genitive; and 
change it into the Italian dello, del, and the French 
du. 


Infantine Analogy. 


The attempts of single grammarians and purists to 
improve language are perfectly useless; and we shall 
probably hear no more of schemes to prune languages 
of their irregularities. But it is quite possible that the 
gradual disappearance of irregular declensions and con- 
Jugations is often due, in literary as well as in illiterate 
languages, to the dialect of children. Children are 
great levellers, and their language is far more regular 
than our own. I have heard children say badder and 
baddest, instead of worse and worst. In Urdt the old 
sign of the possessive was rd, re, r¢. Now it is kd, ke, 
kt, except in hamdrd, my, our, tumhdrd, your, and a 
few other words, all pronouns. Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall 
informs me that he heard children in India use hamké 
and tumkd. Children will say, I gaed, I coomd, 
I catched ; and it is this sense of grammatical justice, 
this generous feeling of what ought to be, which in 
the course of centuries may have eliminated many so- 
called irregular forms. 

Thus the auxiliary verb in Latin was very irregular. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 221 


If swmus is we are, and sunt, they are, the second 
person, you are, ought to have been, at least accord- 
ing to the strict logic of children, sutis. This, no 
doubt, sounds ver, barbarous to a classical ear accus- 
tomed to estis. And we see how French, for instance, 
has strictly preserved the Latin forms in nous 
sommes, vous étes, ils sont. But in Spanish we find 
somos, sois, son; and this sozs stands for sutis. We 
find similar traces of grammatical levelling in the 
Italian siamo, siete, sono, formed according to the 
analogy of regular verbs such as crediamo, credete, 
credono. The second person sez, instead of es, is like- 
wise infantine grammar.’ So are the Walachian 
stntemu, we are, sunteti, you are, which owe their 
origin to the third person plural swnt, they are. And 
what shall we say of such monsters as essendo, a 
gerund derived on principles of strict justice from 
an infinitive essere, like credendo from credere! How- 
ever, we need not be surprised, for we find similar 
barbarisms in English also. In Anglo-Saxon, the 
third person plural, send, has by a false analogy ? 
been transferred to the first and second persons, and 
has taken a new termination ‘on, which properly be- 


1 Similar formations, occurring in the dialects of France, have been 
collected by le Comte de Jaubert, in his Glossaire dw Centre de la 
France, second edition, p. xii. 

2 Much fault has lately been found with the expression ‘false 
analogy.’ It may be quite true that what we call ‘false analogy,’ or 
what the ancients called ‘anomaly,’ is perfectly legitimate, that chil- 
dren have an immemorial right to their irregularities, and peasants to 
their vulgarities. I do not deny the principle of liberté and égalité in 
language, but that does not take away our right of treating such forms 
as essendo or stintemu as blunders, from a Latin point of view, or, in 
more civil language, as false analogies. 


222 CHAPTER IV. 


longs to the plural of the imperfect. In the Old 
Northumbrian dialect the first person plural has been 
used in the second and third, with the same termina- 
tion of the imperfect in on :— 


English Northumbrian! Old Norse Anglo-Saxon Gothic. 
we are aron ér-um sind (on), béo-% sijum 2 
you are aron ér-u'S sind (on), béo-% sijuth 
they are® aron ér-u sind (on), béo-% sind 


Dialectically we hear I be, instead of J am; and if 
Chartism should ever gain the upper hand, we must 
be prepared for newspapers adopting such forms as 
I says, I knows. 


Phonetic Decay and Dialectic Growth in Negro-English. 


What may be the result when Phonetic Decay and 
Dialectic Growth work together, may best be seen in the 
English as spoken by the Negroes on the Southern 
plantations in America. Every disturbing influence 
is here at work, and yet even here there is some law 


1 Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, s. 666. 

* The Gothic forms stjum, stijuth, are not organic. They are either 
derived by false analogy from the third person plural sind, or a new 
base sij was derived from the subjunctive sijau, Sanskrit syim. See 
Leo Meyer, Die Gothische Sprache, p. 496. 

° The Scandinavian origin of these English forms has been well 
explained by Dr. Lottner, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1861, 
p. 63. The third person plural, under the form of aran instead of aron, 
is found in Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus Mvi Saxonict, vol. i. p. 235 
(A.D. 805-831), As the inroads of the Danes begin about 787, aran 
could hardly have been borrowed from them! Avon does not occur in 
Layamon. It is found in the Ormulum as avrn; in Chaucer it has been 
met with twice only, though, soon after, it became the generally recog- 
nised form of the plural. See Gesenius, De Ling. Chaucer. p. 723 
Monicke, On the ‘Ormulum, p. 35. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 223 


and order in what seems at first sight mere phonetic 
chaos. 


‘Ordinary Negro talk1, such as we find in books, has very 
little resemblance to that of the Negroes of Port Royal, who 
were so isolated that they seem to have formed a dialect of 
their own. Indeed, the different plantations have their own | 
peculiarities, and adepts profess to be able to determine, by 
the speech of a Negro, what part of an island he belongs to, or 
even, in some cases, his plantation. My observations were 
confined to a few plantations at the northern end of St. Helena 
Island. 

‘With these people the process of “ Phonetic Decay” appears 
to have gone as far, perhaps, as is possible, and with it the 
extremest simplification of etymology and syntax. The usual 
softening of th and v into d and b is observed among them ; 
likewise a frequent interchange of v and w; as veeds and vell 
for weeds and well; “De wile’ sinner may return” (for vilest). 
This last illustrates also the habit of clipping syllables, which 
they do constantly: as lee’ for little; plant’shun for plantation. 
The lengthening of short vowels is illustrated in both these 
words :—a, for instance, never has our short sound, but always 
the European sound. The following hymn illustrates these 
points :— 

‘Meet, O Lord, on de milk-white horse, 
An’ de nineteen wile [vial] in his han’, 
Drop on, drop on de crown on my head, 
An’ rolly in my Jesus’ arm, 
E’en [in] dat mornin’ all day, 
When Jesus de Chris’ bin born.” 


‘The same hymn, particularly the second verse, 
‘¢Moon went into de poplar tree, 
An’ star went into blood,” 
(the figures evidently taken from the book of Revelations,) is 
a fair specimen of the turn which scriptural ideas and phraseo- 
logy receive in their untutored minds. It should be observed, 
by the way, that the songs do not show the full extent of 


1 Quoted from some interesting articles in an American paper, signed 
Marcel. 


224, CHAPTER IV. 


the debasement of the language. Being generally taken, in 
phrases, from Scripture, or from the hymns which they have 
heard sung by the whites, they retain words and grammatical 
forms which one rarely hears in conversation. The common 
speech, in its strange words and pronunciation, abbreviations, 
and rhythmical modulation, sounds to a stranger like a foreign 
language. 

‘These strange words are, however, less numerous than one 
would imagine. There is yedde for hear, as in that sweetest of 
their songs :— 

“QO my sin is-forgiben and my soul set free, 
An’ I yedde from heaben to-day.” 


There is sh’ um, a corruption of see ’em, applied to all genders 
and both numbers. There is “huddy” (how-do?), pronounced 
“how-dy” by the purists among them. It is not irreverence, 
but affectionate devotion, that is expressed in the simple 
song :— 

“In de mornin’ when I rise, 


Tell my Jesus huddy O, 
Wash my han’ in de mornin’ glory,” ete, 


Studdy (steady) is used to denote any continued or customary 
action. “He studdy *buse an’ cuss me,’ complained one of 
the school-children of another. This word cuss, by the way, is 
used by them with great latitude, to denote any offensive 
language. “He cuss me, ‘git out,’” was the charge of one 
adult against another. ‘Ahvy [Abby: in this case the b had 
become v| do cuss me,” was the serious-sounding but trifling 
accusation made by one little girl against her seat-mate. Both 
they seldom use ; generally “all two,” or emphatically, “all-two 
boff togedder.” One for alone. “Me one an’ God,” was the 
answer of an old man in Charleston when I asked him whether 
he escaped alone from his plantation. ‘Heaben ’nuff for me 
one”’ [7.e. I suppose, “for my part’’], says one of their songs. 
Talk is one of their most common words, where we should use ~ 
speak or mean. “Talk me, sir?” asks a boy who is not sure 
whether you mean him or his comrade. “Talk lick, sir! nuffin 
but lick,” was the answer to the question whether a particular 
~ master used to whip his slaves. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 225 


‘The letters 7 and y are often thrown in euphonically. I can 
only remember at this moment before a long wu as n’EKurope, 
n’United States, no n’use; but I think it is used with other 
vowels. Of y also I can only recall one instance, which I will 
give presently. The most curious, however, of all their linguistic 
peculiarities is, I think, the following: It is well known that 
the Negroes all through the South speak of their elders as 
“uncle” and “aunt”; from a feeling of politeness, I do not 
doubt ;—it seemed disrespectful to use the bare name, and 
from Mr. and Mrs. they were debarred. On the Sea Islands 
similar feeling has led to the use of cousin towards their equals. 
Abbreviating this after their fashion, they get co’n or co’ (the 
vowel sound t of cousin) as the common title when they speak 
of one another. C’ Abram, Co’ Robin, Co’n Emma, C’ Isaac, Co’ 
Bob, are specimens of what one hears every day. I have heard 
Bro’ (brother) used in the same way, but seldom; as in the song, 


“ Bro’ Bill, you ought to know my name, 
My name is written in de book ob life.” 


‘IT come now to the subject of grammar, upon which I might 
almost be entitled to repeat a very old joke, and say that there 
is no grammar ; for there probably is no speech that has less 
inflection than that of these Negroes. There is no distinction 
of case, number, tense, or voice, hardly of gender. Perhaps I 
am wrong in saying that there is no number, for this distinc- 
tion is made in pronouns, and some of the most intelligent 
will, perhaps, occasionally make it in nouns. But “Sandy 
hat” would generally mean indifferently Sandy’s hat or hats; 
“dem cow” is plural, “dat cow” singular; “nigger house” 
means the collection of Negro houses, and is, I suppose, really 
plural. As to cases, I do not know that I ever heard a regular 
possessive, but they have begun to develop one of their own, 
which is a very curious illustration of the way inflectional 
forms have probably grown up in other languages. If they 
wish to make the fact of possession at all emphatic or distinct, 
they use the whole word “own.” ‘Thus, they will say “ Mosey 
house ;”’ but if asked whose house that is, the answer is “ Mosey 
own.” “Co’ Molsy y’own” was the odd reply made by a little 
girl to the question whose child she was carrying; Co’ is title ; 
y euphonie. 

ig Q 


226 CHAPTER IV. 


‘Nearly all the pronouns exist. Perhaps us does not, we 
being generally in its place. She and her being rare, him is 
the usual pronoun of the third person singular, for all genders 
and cases. “Him lick we” was the complaint of some small 
children against a large girl. Um is still more common, as 
objective case, for all genders and numbers; as Sh ’um (see 
"em). 

‘“Tt is too much to say that the verbs have no inflections; 
but it is true that these have nearly disappeared. Ask a boy 
where he is going, and the answer is “gwine crick for ketch 
crab,”—“ going into the creek to catch crabs” (for being 
generally used instead of to, to denote purpose); ask another 
where the missing boy is, and the answer iy the same, with 
gone instead of gwine. Present time is made definite by the 
auxiliary do or da, as in the refrains “ Bell da ring,” “Jericho 
da worry me.”? Past time is expressed by done, as in other 
parts of the South. The passive is rarely, if ever, indicated. 
“Ole man call John,” is the answer when you ask who is such 
and such a person. “Him mix wid him own fat,” was the 
description given of a paste made of bruised ground-nuts, the 
oil of the nut furnishing moisture.’ 


I have given this rather long extract, because it 
seemed to me that what we see here taking place 
before our eyes in the language of American Negroes, 
throws very valuable light on what may have taken 
place thousands of years ago during the earliest phases 
of human speech. Over and over again less civil- 
ised tribes, after having been subdued by more ad- 
vanced races, have had to learn their masters’ 
Janguage. Over and over again the conquered be- 
came the conquerors, and their imperfect language 
had to be recognised, and after a time it either sup- 
planted its classical prototype, or, at all events, modi- 


* See J.J. Thomas, Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar, 1869 
and the same author’s remarks in Triibner’s Record, December, 1870. 


PHONETIC CHANGE. 227 


fied it considerably. The mischief wrought by phonetic 
decay seems enormous in that Negro jargon, yet not 
much more than what we see in méme as compared with 
semetipsissimus. The confusion created by dialectic 
erowth is most puzzling in the mixed idiom of these 
slaves, still this too could be matched by such monsters 
as contrée (contrata, Gegend) for regio. Asan extreme 
case of the change of language produced by the com- 
bined action of phonetic decay and dialectic growth, 
it may prove instructive and give us a truer insight 
into the life and decay of human speech in times far 
beyond the ken of the ordinary student of the Science 
of Language. 


CHAPTER V. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 


Is Lautverschiebung due to Phonetic Decay or to Dialectic 
Growth ? 


AVING examined the different influences which 
produce change in language, we shall now be 
better prepared to understand that peculiar change 
in the consonantal structure of the Aryan languages 
which Grimm called Lautverschiebung. 

The law by which that shifting of consonants is 
governed is generally called Grimm's Law, because, 
though it had been suspected before, Grimm was the 
first to point out the regular recurrence of this far- 
reaching phonetic modification which affects the prin- 
cipal guttural, dental, and labial consonants in San- 
skrit, Greek, Latin, Slavonic and Celtic on one side, 
and in Low-German and High-German on the other. 


The Facts of Grimm’s Law. 


The facts comprehended under the name of Grimm’s 
Law are as follows :— 

There are in the Aryan languages three principal 
points of consonantal contact, the guttural, the dental, 
_and the labial, k, ¢, p. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 229 


At each of these three points there are two modes 
of utterance, the surd and the sonant; each in turn 
liable to aspiration, though only in certain languages. 
This aspiration may in the end be replaced by mere 
spiration. 

In Sanskrit the system is complete; we have the - 
surd checks, /, t, 9; the sonant checks, g, d, 0; the 
surd aspirated checks, kh, th, ph; and the sonant 
aspirated checks, gh, dh, bh. The sonant aspirated 
checks are, however, in Sanskrit of far greater fre- 
quency and importance than the hard aspirates. 

In Greek we find, besides the usual surd and sonant 
checks, one set of aspirates, x, 0, ¢, which are surd, 
and which in later Greek dwindle away into the cor- 
responding spirants. 

In Latin there are no real aspirates, their place 
having been taken by the corresponding spirants, 
h, f. The dental sibilant, however, the s, is never 
found in Latin as the representative of an original 
dental aspirate (th or dh). Corresponding to dh we 
find f, or d and 6. 

In Gothic, too, the real aspirates are wanting. 
The same applies to Old High-German. 

In the Slavonic and Celtic languages the four aspi- 
rates are likewise absent, and they therefore stand in 
that respect on a level with Gothic". 

We see, therefore, that the aspirated letters exist 
only in Sanskrit and Greek, that in the former they 
are chiefly sonant, in the latter entirely surd. 

Grimm’s Law amounts to this: ‘If the same roots 


1 See Grassmann in Kuhn’s Zeitschrife, xii, p. 83. 


ou) CHAPTER V. 


or the same words exist in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, 
Celtic, Slavonic, Lithuanian, Gothic, and High-Ger- 
man, then wherever the Hindus and the Greeks pro- 
nounce an aspirate, the Goths and the Low Germans 
generally, the Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, &c., 
pronounce the corresponding sonant check, the Old 
High-Germans the corresponding surd check. In this 
first change the Lithuanian, the Slavonic, and the 
Celtic races agree in pronunciation with the Gothic. 
We thus arrive at the first formula :— 

I. Greek and Sansk. KH,GH TH, DH, PH, BH! 

II. Gothic, &c. G D B 

LiL, sOldsH+G; K T P 

Secondly, if in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, 
Slavonic, and Celtic, we find a sonant check, then we 
find a corresponding surd check in Gothic, a corre- 
sponding spirant in Old High-German. This gives 
us the second formula :— 


IV. Greek, &c. G D B 
V. Gothic K it P 
VI. Old H.-G. Ch Z (Phy? 


Thirdly, when the six first-named languages show 
a surd check, then Gothic shows the corresponding 
spirant, Old High-German the corresponding sonant 
* The letters here used are to be considered merely as symbols, not 


as the real letters occurring in those languages. If we translate these 
symbols into real letters, we find, in Formula I., instead of 


KH TH Ee 
Sanskrit kh, gh, h th, dh, h ph, bh, h 
Greek x 6 oo) 
Latin h, f (gv, g, v,’) f(d, b) f (b) 
Gothic h th f (v) 


* The O.H.G. spirants become affricatae, except medially between 
vowels, and finally after vowels. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 931 


check. In Old High-German, however, the law holds 
good with regard to the dental series only, while in 
the guttural and labial series the Old High-German 
documents generally exhibit h and jf, instead of the 
corresponding g and b. This gives us the third 
formula :— 


VII. Greek, &c. K uk P 
VIII. Gothic H (G) Th (D) F (B) 
IX. Old H.-G. Hal, Kode LD) F (B, V) 


Object of the Fourfold Modification of Consonants. 


We saw from our physiological analysis of the 
alphabet, that three, or sometimes four, varieties may 
exist for each of the three consonantal contacts :— 


k, kh, g, gh; t, th, d, dh; p, ph, b, bh. 


This rich variety of consonantal contact is to be 
found, however, in highly developed languages only. 
Even among the Aryan dialects, Sanskrit alone can 
boast of possessing it entire. Greek is driven to 
merge the difference between sonant and surd aspl- 
rates, and, where Sanskrit uses sonant aspirates, it has 
to employ surd aspirates. The other Aryan languages 
having no sonant aspirates, use sonant tenues instead. 
They all, in fact, cut the coat according to their 
cloth. 

The introduction of the differences of articulation 
in more highly developed languages had a definite 
and intelligible object. As new conceptions craved 
expression, the phonetic organs were driven to new 
devices, which gradually assumed a more settled, 
traditional, and typical form. It is possible to speak 


RO2 CHAPTER V. 


without labials, it is possible to say a great deal 
in a language which has but seven consonants, just 
as it is possible for a mollusc to eat without lips, and 
to enjoy life without either lungs or liver. But I 
believe it can be proved that at a very early time, 
and before the Aryan nations, such as we know them, 
separated, some of them, at all events, had elaborated — 
a threefold, if not a fourfold modification of the con- 
sonantal checks for the sake of distinguishing a 
number of roots which they required in their intel- 
lectual intercourse. 


Treble Roots. 


The Aryans, before they separated, had, for in- 
stance, three roots, which in Sanskrit appear as tar, 
dar, and dhar, differing chiefly by their initial con- 
Sonants which represent three varieties of dental 
contact. Tar meant to cross, dar, to tear, dhar, 
to hold. Now although we may not know exactly 
how the Aryans before their separation pronounced 
these three letters, the t, d, and dh, we may be 
certain that they kept them distinct. That dis- 
tinction was kept up in Sanskrit by means of the 
surd, the sonant, and the aspirated sonant contact, 
but it might have been achieved equally well by 
the surd, the sonant, and the aspirated surd contact, 
t, d, th, or by the surd and sonant contacts together 
with the dental spirant. The great point was to 
have three distinct utterances for three distinct, 
though possibly cognate, expressions. Now, if the 
same three roots coexisted in Greek, they would there, 

as the sonant aspirates are wanting, appear from the 


GRIMM’S LAW. 233 


very beginning, as tur (térma, ter-minus), dar (dérma, 
skin), and thar, but never as dhar.1 But what 
would happen, if the same three roots had to be fixed 
by the Romans, who had never realised the existence 
of aspirates at all? It is clear that in their language 
the distinctions so carefully elaborated at first, and so - 
successfully kept up in Sanskrit and Greek, would be 
lost. Dar and Tar might be kept distinct, but the 
third variety, whether dhar or thar, would either be 
merged, or assume a different form altogether. 

Let us see what happened in the case of tar, dar, 
and dhar. Instead of three, as in Sanskrit, the other 
Aryan languages have fixed on two roots only, tar 
and dar, replacing dhar by bhar, or some other radical. 
Thus tar, to cross, has produced in Sanskrit tarman, 
point, tiras, through; in Greek tér-ma, end; in Latin 
ter-minus, and trans, through ; in Old Norse, thro-m, 
edge, Gothic thairh, through; in Old High-German 
dru-m, end, durh, through. Dar, to burst, to break, 
to tear, exists in Sanskrit dri nAti, in Greek detré, I 
skin; dérma, skin; Gothie tairan, to tear; Old High- 
German zeran. But though traces of the third root 
dhar may be found here and there, for instance in 
Persian Dérayavus, Darius, i.e. the holder or sus- 
tainer of the empire, in Zend dere, Old Persian dar, 


1 The possible corruption of gh, dh, bh, into kh, th, ph, has been ex- 
plained by Curtius (G@. Z. ii. 17), under the supposition that the second 
element of gh, dh, bh, is the spiritus asper, a supposition which is un- 
tenable (Briicke, p. 84). But even if the transition of gh into kh were 
phonetically possible, it has never been proved that Greek ever passed 
through the phonetic phase of Sanskrit. See also the interesting obser- 
vations of Grassmann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xii. p. 106. 


234 CHAPTER V. 


to hold, that root has disappeared in most of the 
other Aryan dialects. 

The same has happened even when there were only 
two roots to distinguish. The two verbs, dad&mi, 
I give, and dadhami, I place, were kept distinct in 
Sanskrit by means of their initials. In Greek the 
same distinction was kept up between d¢-dod-mi, I 
give, and tithémi, I place: and a new distinction was 
added, namely, the @ and the 6. In Zend the two 
roots ran together, dé meaning both to give and to 
place, or to make, besides dd, to know. This is 
clearly a defect. In Latin it was equally impossible 
to distinguish between the roots dé and dha, because 
the Romans had no aspirated dentals; but such was 
the good sense of the Romans that, when they felt 
that they could not efficiently keep the two roots 
apart, they kept only one, dare, to give, and replaced 
the other dare, to place or to make, by different 
verbs, such as ponere, facere. That the Romans 
possessed both roots originally, we can see in such 
words as crédo, crédidi, which correspond to Sanskrit 
srad-dadhami, srad-dadhau,! but where the dh 
has of course lost its aspiration in Latin. In condere 
and abdere likewise the radical element is dhd, to 
place, while in veddo, I give back, do must be traced 
back to the same root as the Latin dare, to give. In 
Gothic, on the contrary, the root dd, to give, was 
surrendered, and dhd only was preserved, though, of 
course, under the form of dd. 

Such losses, however, though they could be re- 


* Sanskrit dh appears as Latin d in medius=Sk. madhya, Greek 
_ pegos or péooos, meri-dies, for medi-dies = peo-nuBpia. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 235 


medied, and have been remedied in languages which 
had not developed the aspirated varieties of con- 
sonantal articulation, were not submitted to by 
Gothic and the other Low and High German tribes 
without an effort to counteract them. The Teutonic 
tribes, as we saw, were without real aspirates, but in ~ 
taking possession of the phonetic inheritance of their 
Aryan, not Indian, forefathers, they retained the 
consciousness of the threefold variety of their con- 
sonantal checks, and they tried to meet this three- 
fold claim as best they could. Aspirates, whether 
surd or sonant, they had none. Hence, where Sanskrit 
had fixed on sonant, Greek on surd aspirates, Gothic, 
like Latin, like the Celtic and Slavonic tongues, pre- 
ferred the corresponding sonant checks ; High-German 
the corresponding surd checks. High-German ap- 
proached to Greek, in so far as both agreed on 
surd consonants; Gothic approached to Sanskrit, in 
so far as both agreed on sonant consonants. But none 
borrowed from the other, none was before or after 
the other. All four, according to my view of dialec- 
tic growth, must be taken as dialectic varieties of one 
and the same type. 

So far all would be easy and simple. But now we 
have to consider the common Aryan words which in 
Sanskrit, Greek, in fact, in all the Aryan languages, 
begin with sonant and surd checks. What could the 
Goths and the High-Germans do? They had really 
robbed Peter to pay Paul. The High-Germans had 
spent their surd, the Goths their sonant checks, to 
supply the place of the aspirates. The soft checks of 
the Goths, g, d, b, corresponding to Sanskrit gh, dh, 


236 CHAPTER V. 


bh, were never meant, and could not be allowed, 
to run together and be lost in the second series of 
soft consonants which the Hindus, the Greeks, and 
the other Aryan nations kept distinct from gh, dh, 
bh, and expressed by g,d, 6. These two series were 
felt to be distinct by the Goths and the High-Ger- 
mans, quite as much as by the Hindus and Greeks ; 
and while the Celtic and Slavonic nations submitted 
to the aspirates gh, dh, bh, being merged in the real 
mediz g, d, b, remédying the mischief as best they 
could, the Goths, guided by a wish to keep distinct 
what must be kept distinct, fixed the second series, 
the g, d, b’s in their national utterance as fk, t, p's. 

The same pressure would be felt once more, for 
there was the same necessity of maintaining an out- 
ward distinction between their k, t, p's and that third 
series, which in Sanskrit and Greek had been fixed 
as k, t,p. Here the Gothic nations were driven to 
adopt the only remaining expedient; and in order to 
distinguish the third series both from the g, d, 6’s 
and k, t, p’s, which they had used up, they had to 
employ the corresponding surd spirants, the h, th, 
and f. 

The High-German tribes passed through nearly the 
same straits. What the Greeks took for surd aspirates, 
they had taken for surd tenues. Having spent their 4, ¢, 
ps, they were driven to adopt the spirants and affricatae, 
the ch, 2, f, as the second variety; while, when the third 
variety came to be expressed, nothing remained but 
the medize, which, however, in the literary documents 
accessible to us, have, in the guttural and Jabial series, 

been constantly replaced by the Gothic / and f, caus- 


GRIMM’S LAW. 937 


ing a partial confusion which might easily have been 
avoided. 

This phonetic process which led the Hindus, Greeks, 
Goths, and Germans to a settlement of their respective 
consonantal systems might be represented as follows. 
The aspirates are indicated by I., the medie by II, 
the tenues by III., the spirants by IV.:— 


I. II. Ill 
Sanskrit. gh dh bh See D k t >] 


II. II IV. 
GOuniCu, 9s di 0 ke ay 48) ee thet 
IIL. Il. 


; I. 
Greeks Ait ye 0rp ke? tip oa Weal 


III. II IV. 


High-German k t p (2) hide) fer ech 7 ties 


Let us now examine one or two more of these 
clusters of treble roots, like dhavr, dar, tar, and see 
how they burst forth under different climates from 
the soil of the Aryan languages. 

There are three roots, all beginning with a gut- 
tural and ending with the vocalised 7, In the ab- 
stract they may be represented as KAR, GAR, 
KHAR (or GHAR). In Sanskrit we meet first of all 
with GHAR, which soon sinks down to HAR, a 
root of which we shall have to say a great deal when 
we come to examine the growth of mythological 
ideas, but which for the present we may define as 
meaning to glitter, to be bright, to be happy, to 
burn, to be eager. In Greek this root appears in 
chatrein, to rejoice, &c. 

Gothic, following Sanskrit as far as it could, fixed 


238 CHAPTER V. 


the same root as GAR, and formed from it geiro, 
desire; gairan and gairnjan, to desire, to yearn— 
derivatives which, though they seem to have taken 
a sense almost the contrary of that of the Greek 
chatrein, find. valuable analogies in the Sanskrit 
haryati, to desire, &e.! The High-German, foliow- 
ing Greek as far as possible, formed hiri, desire ; 
kerni, desiring, &. So much for the history of one 
root in the four representative languages, in San- 
skrit, Greek, Gothic, and High-German. 

We now come to a second root, represented in 
Sanskrit by GAR, to shout, to praise. There is no 
difficulty in Greek. Greek had not spent its media, 
and therefore exhibits the same root with the same 
consonants as Sanskrit, in gérys, voice; geryo, I 
proclaim. But what was Gothic to do, and the lan- 
guages which follow Gothic, Low-German, Anglo- 
Saxon, Old Norse? Having spent their medic on 
ghar, they must fall back on their tenues, and hence 
the Old Norse kalla, to call,? but not the A.S. galan, 
to yell. The name for crane is derived in Greek 
from the same root, géranos, meaning literally the 
shouter. In Anglo-Saxon eran and Old E. crane we 
find the corresponding tenuis. Lastly, the High-Ger- 
man, having spent its tenuis, has to fall back on its 
guttural breath; hence O.H.G. challén, to eall, and 
chranoh, erane. 

The third root, KAR, appears in Sanskrit as well 
as in Greek with its guttural tenuis. There is in 

1 See Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, i. 166, and Objections, ibid. 


ii. 313. 
2 Lottner in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xi. p. 165. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 239 


Sanskrit kar, to make, to achieve; kratu, power, 
&e.; in Greek kratné, I achieve; and kratys, strong ; 
kdrtos, strength. Gothic having disposed both of its 
media and tenuis, has to employ its guttural spirant 
to represent the third series; hence hardus, hard, 
i.e. strong. The High-German, which naturally 
would have recourse to its unemployed media, pre- 
fers in the guttural series the Gothic spirant, giving 
us harti instead of garti, and thereby causing, in a 
limited sphere, that very disturbance the avoidance 
of which seems to be the secret spring of the whole 
process of the so-called Dislocation of Consonants, 
or Lautverschiebung. 

Again, there are in Sanskrit three roots ending in 
u, and differing from each other merely by the three 
dental initials, dh, d, and t. There is dht (dhu), 
to shake; du, to burn; and tu, to grow.! 

The first root, dhi, produces in Sanskrit dhfi-no- 
mi, I shake; dhti-ma, smoke (what is shaken or 
whirled about); dht-1li, dust. In Greek the same 
root yields thyo, to rush, as applied to rivers, storms, 
and the passions of the mind; thyella, storm ; thymés, 
wrath, spirit; in Latin, fwmus, smoke. 

In Gothic the Sanskrit aspirate dh is represented 
by d; hence dawns, vapour, smell. In Old High- 
German the Greek aspirate th is represented by ¢; 
hence twnst, storm. 

The second root, du, meaning to burn, both in a 
material and moral sense, yields in Sanskrit dava, 
conflagration; davath&é, inflammation, pain; in 
Greek dato, dédawmai, to burn; dé, misery. 

* See Curtius, Griechische Htymologie, i. 224, 196, 192. 


240 CHAPTER V. 


Another Sanskrit root, du, to move about, to be 
busy, has as yet been met with in Sanskrit gram- 
marians only. But, besides the participle dina, 
mentioned by them, there is the participle dita, a 
messenger, one who is moved or sent about on busi- 
ness, and in this sense the root du may throw light 
on the origin of Gothic tawjan, German zauen, to do 
quickly, to speed an act.} 

The third root, tu, appears in Sanskrit as taviti, 
he grows, he is strong; in tavés, strong; tavisha, 
strong; tuvi (in comp.), strong; in Greek, as tajjs, 
great. The Latin tétus has been derived from the 
same root, though not without difficulty. The Um- 
brian and Oscan words for city, on the contrary, 
certainly came from that root, tuta, tota, from which 
tuticus in meddia tuticus,? town magistrate. In 
Lettish, tauta is people; in Old Irish, tuath. In 
Gothic we have thiuda,* people ; thiudisk-s, belonging 
to the people, theodiscus; thiudiskd, ethnikods; in 
Anglo-Saxon, thedn, to grow; thedd and theddisc, 
people; gethedd, language (il volgare). The High- 
German, which looks upon Sanskrit t and Gothic th 
as d, possesses the same word, as diot, people, diutisc, 
popularis ; hence Deutsch, German, and deuten, to ex- 
plain, lit. to Germanize. 


1M. M., Rig-veda-Sanhitd, translated, vol. i. p. 63. 

* Aufrecht und Kirchhoff, Die Umbrischen Sprachdenkmiler, i. 
p. 155 ; Kuhn, Zeitschrift, vii. 166. See, for a new interpretation of 
meddix, Corssen, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xi. 332. 

* Lottner, Kuhn’s Zettschrift, vii. 166. 

* Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, first part, 8rd edition, 1840, Einleit- 
ung, p. x. ‘ Hxcurs tiber Germanisch und Deutsch.’ 


GRIMM’S LAW. | 241 


Examples of Lautverschiebung. 


Let us now examine a few words which form the 
common property of the Aryan nations, and which 
existed in some form or other before Sanskrit was 
Sanskrit, Greek Greek, and Gothic Gothic. Some 
of them have not only the same radical, but likewise 
the same formative or derivative elements in ail the 
Aryan languages. These are, no doubt, the most in- 
_ teresting, because they belong to the earliest stages 
of Aryan speech, not only by their material, but 
likewise by their workmanship. Such a word as 
mother, for instance, has not only the same root in 
Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, Slavonic, and Celtic, 
namely, the root md, but likewise the same derivative 
tar throughout,! so that there can be no doubt that in 
the English mother we are handling the same word 
which in ages commonly called prehistoric, but in 
reality as historical as the days of Homer, or the more 
distant times of the Vedic Rishis, was framed to ex- 
press the original conception of genitriv. But there 
are other words which, though they differ in their 
derivative elements, are identical in their roots and in 
their meanings, so as to leave little doubt that, though 
they did not exist previous to the dispersion of the 
Aryans in exactly that form in which they are found 
in Greek or Sanskrit, they are nevertheless mere 
dialectic varieties, or modern modifications of earlier 
words. Thus star is not exactly the same word as 
stella; yet these two words show that, previous to 


1 Sk. mata; Greek pyrnp; Lat. mater; O.H.G. muotar; O. Sh. 
mati; Lith. moti; Gaelic, mathair. 


II, R 


242 CHAPTER V. 


the confusion of the Aryan tongues, the root star, to 
strew, was applied to the stars, as strewing about or 
sprinkling forth their sparkling light. In that sense 
we find the stars called stvz, plural staras, in the 
Veda. The Latin stella stands for sterula, and means 
a little star; the Gothic stair-nd is a new feminine 
derivative. As to the Greek astér, it is supposed to 
be derived from a different root, as, to shoot, and to 
mean the shooters of rays, the darters of light; but it 
can, with greater plausibility, be claimed for the same 
family as the Sanskrit star. ) 
It might be objected that this very word star 
violates the law which we are going to examine, 
though all philologists agree that it is a law that 
cannot be violated with impunity. But, as in other 
sciences, so in the science of language, a law is not 
violated, on the contrary, it is confirmed, by excep- 
tions, if a rational explanation can be given of them. 
Now the fact is that Grimm’s law is most strictly 
enforced on all initial consonants, but much less so 
on medial and final consonants. But whenever the 
tenuis is preceded at the beginning of words or syl- 
lables by an s, h, or f, these letters protect the f, f, 
p, and guard it against the execution of the law. 
Thus the root sté does not become sthd in Gothic; 
nor does the t at the end of noct-is become th, night 
being naht in Gothic. On the same ground, sé in 
stir and stella could not appear in Gothie as sth, but 
remain st as in stairnd. 

In selecting a few words to illustrate each of the 
nine cases in which the dislocation of consonants has 
taken place, I shall confine myself, as much as pos- 


GRIMM’S LAW. 943 


sible, to words occurring in English; and I have to 
observe that, as a general rule, Anglo-Saxon stands 
throughout on the same step as Gothic. Consonants 
in the middle and at the end of words are liable to 
various disturbing influences, and I shall therefore 
dwell chiefly on the changes of initial consonants. 

Our first class consists of words which in English 
and Anglo-Saxon begin with the sonant g, d,and 0. If 
the same words exist in Sanskrit, we expect the 
aspirates gh, dh, bh, but never g, d, b, ork, t, p. In 
Greek we expect x, 6,@. In the other languages there 
can be no change, because they ignore the distinction 
between aspirates and sonant checks, except the Latin, 
which fluctuates between sonant checks and guttural 
and labial spirants. 

I. KH, Greek y; Sanskrit kh, gh, h; Latin h, f (g). 
G, Gothic g; Latin gv, g,v; Celtic g; Slavonic g, z. 
K, Old High-German k. 

The English yesterday is the Gothic gistra, the 
Anglo-Saxon geostra or geostrandeg, German gestern. 
The radical portion is gis, the derivative tra; just as 
in Latin hes-ternus, hes is the base, ternus the deriva- 
tive. In heri the s is changed to 7, because it stands 
between two vowels, like genus, generis. Now in 
Sanskrit we look for initial gh, or h, and so we find 
hyas, yesterday. In Greek we look for x, and so we 
find chthés. Old High-German, késtre. In Persian, 
di-ruz. 

- Corresponding to gall, bile, we find Greek cholz, 
Latin fel instead of hel. 


1 Lotiner, Zeitschrift, vii. 167, 
R 2 


94.4, CHAPTER Y. 


Similarly Gothic giu-ta, to pour out, is connected 
with Greek yéw, yu7és, and Sanskrit hu, to pour out 
libations, the Latin fundo, and futilis. 

The English goose, the A.S. gés, is the O.H.G. kans, 
the Modern German Gans! (It is a general rule in 
A.S. that before f, s, and th is dropped ; thus Goth. 
munth-s=A.S. mith, mouth; Latin dens, A.S. téth, 
tooth ; German ander, Sk. antara, A.S. éther, other.) 
In Greek we find chén, in Latin anser, instead of 
hanser, in Sanskrit hamsa, in Russian gus’, in Bohe- 
mian hus, well known as the name of the great 
reformer and martyr. 


Il. TH, Greek 6, ¢; Sanskrit th, dh; Latin f (b, d). 
D, Gothic d; Latin d, b; Celtic d; Slavonic d. 
T, Old High-German t. 


The English to dare is the Gothic gadawrsan, the 
Greek tharsein or tharretn, the Sanskrit dhvrzsh, the 
O.Sl. drizatt, O.H.G. tarran. The Homeric Ther- 
sites? may come from the same root, meaning the 
daring fellow. Greek, thrasys, bold, is Lithuanian 
drasus. 

The English doom means originally judgment ; 
hence, ‘final doom,’ the last judgment; Doomsday, 
the day of judgment. So in Gothic, dom-s is Judg- 
ment, sentence. If this word exists in Greek, it would 
be there derived from a root dhd or thé (tithémi), 
which means to place, to settle, and from which we 
have at least one derivative in a strictly legal- sense, 
namely, thémis, law, what is settled, then the ° oe 
of justice. 


1 Curtius, G. H.:1. 222, : ? Curtius, G. H. i, 222. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 245 


Professor Bréal has traced Latin fas to the same 
root. There is less reason why law, A.S. lagu, should 
not be connected with lex, and both be derived from a 
root “lah, to lay down (Aéxos, Lat. lectus), just as the 
German Gesetz was meant for what is settled, a 
statute. | sR et | 


Ill. PH, Greek #; Sanskrit ph, bh; Latin f (b). 
B, Gothic b; Latin b; Celtic and Slavonic b. 
P, Old High-German p. 


The A.S. béom, ‘I am,’ is the O.H.G. pi-m, the 
modern German bin, the Sanskrit bhavami, from a 
root which appears in the Greek phiio, and in Latin 
fui. 

The Gothic bédka! is the Latin fdgus, the O H.G. 
puocha. The Greek phégés, which is identically the 
same word, does not mean beech, but oak. It is diffi- 
cult to say whether this change of meaning was acci- 
dental, or whether there were circumstances by which 
it can be explained? Was phéqds originally the name 
of the oak, meaning the food-tree, from phagein, to 
eat? And was the name which originally belonged 
to the oak (the Quercus Esculus) transferred to the 
beech, after the age of stone with its fir-trees, and the 
age of bronze with its oak-trees, had passed away,? 
and the age of iron and of beech-trees had dawned on 
the shores of Europe? I hardly venture to say Yes; 
yet we shall meet with other words and other changes’ 
of meaning suggesting similar ideas, and encouraging 


1 The A.S. b&ce, English beech, presupposes a Teutonic békd, fem. 
In buck-mast we have evidence of a former ddc. 


? Sir Charles Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 9. 


246 CHAPTER V. 


the student of language in looking upon these words 
as witnesses attesting more strikingly than flints and 
tags the presence of human life and Aryan language 
in Europe, previous to the beginning of history or 
tradition. | 
What is the English brim?! We say a glass is 
brim full, or we fill our glasses to the brim, which 
means simply ‘to the edge. We also speak of the 
brim of a hat, the German Brame. Now originally 
brim did not mean every kind of edge or verge, but 
only the line which separates the land from the sea. 
It is derived from the root bhram, which, as it ought, 
exhibits bh in Sanskrit, and means to whirl about, 
applied to fire, such as bhrama, the leaping flame, 
or to water, such as bhrama, a whirlpool, or to air, 
such as bhrémi, a whirlwind. Now what was called 
estus by the Romans, namely, the swell or surge of 
the sea, where the waves seemed to foam, to flame, 
and to smoke (hence estuary), the same point was 
called by the Teutonic nations the whirl, or the brim. 
After meaning the border-line between land and sea, 
it came to mean any border, though in the expression, 
‘fill your glasses to the brim,’ we still imagine to see 
the original conception of the sea rushing or pouring 
in toward the dry land. In Greek we have a de- 
rivative verb phrimdsseivn,’ to toss about ; in Latin 
fremo, chiefly in the sense of raging or roaring, and 


' 1 Kuhn, Zeitschrift, vi. 152. 

2 Boéuw and Bpépos, which are compared by Kuhn, would violate 
the law; they express principally the sound, for instance in Bpovrn, 
ivi Bpeuérns, Curtius, G. H. ii.109. Grassmann, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, 
xii, 98. ee 


GRIMM’S LAW, 24:7 


perhaps frendo, to gnash, are akin to this root. In 
the Teutonic languages other words of a totally dif- 
ferent character must be traced back to the same 
original conception of bhram, to whirl, to be confused, 
to be rolled up together, namely, bramble, broom, &e." 
We now proceed to the second class, namely, words 
which in Gothic and Anglo-Saxon are pronounced 
with k, t, p, and which, therefore, in all the other 
Indo-European languages, with the exception of Old 
High-German, ought to be pronounced with g, d, b. 


IV. G, Sanskrit g; Greek, Latin, and Celtic g; Slavonic g, z. 
K, Gothic k. 
KH, Old High-German ch. 


The English corn is the Gothie kawrn, Slavonic 
zrno, Lith. Zirnis. In Latin we find granum, 
in Sanskrit we may compare girna, ground down, 
though chiefly applied metaphorically to what is 
ground down or destroyed by old age. O.H.G. chorn. 

The English kin is Gothic kuni, AS. cynn, 
O.H.G. chunni. In Greek génos, Latin genus, Sk. 
ganas, we have the same word. The English child, 
A.S. cild, is in Old Saxon kind, the Greek génos, off- 
spring. The English queen is the Gothic géns, the 
A.S. cwén. It meant originally, like the Sanskrit 
g&ni, woman, because mother, just as king, the Ger- 
man kénig, the O.H.G. chuninc, the A.S. cyn-vng, 
meant originally, like Sk. ganaka, father.* Besides 
the forms with long vowel, the same word exists with 


1 Brande, sorte de broussaille dans le Berry, bruyére & balai. 
2 Brugmann, Vergleichende Grammatik, § 306. 
3 See infra, p. 284. 


‘948 - CHAPTER V. 


a short vowel, as Gothic qind, Old Saxon quéna, 
A.S. cwéne, Slav. Zena, Boet. Bava, Sanskrit ona.! 

The English knot is the Old Norse knitr, the Latin 
nodus, which stands for gnodus. 


V. OD, Sanskrit d; Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic d. 
T, Gothic t. 
TH, Old High-German z. 


English: two is Gothie twat, O.H.G. zuet. In all 
other languages we get the initial soft d; Greek 
dwo, Latin duo, Lith. du, Slav. dva, Irish do. Dubius, 
doubtful, is derived from duo, two; and the same 
idea is expressed by the German Zweifel, Old High- 
German zwifal, Gothic tweifls. 

English tree is Gothic triw; in Sanskrit dru, wood 
and tree (daru, a log). In Greek drgs is tree, but 
especially the tree, namely, the oak.2 In Irish darach 
and in Welsh derw the meaning of oak is said to 
preponderate, though originally they meant tree in 
general. In Slavonic dijevo we have again the same 
word in the sense of tree. The Greek déry meant 
originally a wooden shaft, then a spear. 

English timber is Gothic timr or timbr, from which 
tumrjan, to build. We must compare it, therefore, 
with Greek démein to build, démos, house, Lat. domus, 
Sanskrit dama, the German Zimmer, room. 


VI. B, Sanskrit b or v; Greek, Latin, Celtic, and Slavonic b. 
P, Gothic p (scarce). 
PH, Old High-German ph or f. 


1 See Brugmann, § 70. ; 
? Schol. ad Hom. JI. xi. 86 Spurdpos, ae Spuv yap éxadcuv 
of madaol dd Tov dpxaiorépov nav 5évSpor. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 249 


- There are few really Saxon words beginning with 
p, and there are no words in Gothic beginning with 
that letter, except foreign words, In Sanskrit, too, 
the consonant that ought to correspond to Gothic p, 
namely 4, is very seldom, if ever, an initial sound, its 
place being occupied by the labial spiritus v. | 

We now proceed to the third class, i.e. words begin- 
ning in English and Gothic with aspirates, or more 
properly with breathings, which necessitate in all 
other Aryan languages, except Old High-German, 
corresponding consonants such as k, t, p. In Old 
High-German the law breaks down. We find h and f 
instead of g and 6, and only in the dental series the 
media d@ has been preserved, corresponding to Sanskrit 
t and Gothic th. 

VII. K, Sanskrit k; Greek k; Latin c, qu; Old Irish ec, ch; 
Slavonic k. 
KH, Gothic h, g (f). Sanskrit h. 
G, Old High-German h (g, k). 

The English heart is the Gothic hazrté. Accord- 
ingly we find in Latin cor, cordis, in Greek kardia. 
In Sanskrit we should expect srizd, instead of which 
we find the irregular form hrzd. O.H.G. herza. 

The English hart, cervus, is the Anglo-Saxon heorot, 
the Old High-German hzruz. This points to Greek 
keraés, horned, from kéras, horn, and to cervus in 
Latin. The same root produced in Latin cornu, 
Gothic haurn, Old High-German horn. In Sk., siras 
is head, sringa, horn. 

The English who and what, though written with 
wh, are in Anglo-Saxon hwd and hwet, in Gothic 
hwas, hwé, hwa. Transliterating this into Sanskrit, 


250 CHAPTER V. 


we get kas, ka, kad; Latin quis, que, quid; Greek 
kés and pds. 
VIII. T, Sanskrit t; Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic t. 


TH, Gothic th and d. 
D, Old High-German d. 


The English that is the Gothic thata, the neuter 
of sa, sd, thata; A.S. se, sed, that; German der, die, 
das. In Sanskrit sa, s4, tad; in Greek, ho, hé, td. 

In the same manner three, Gothic threis, is Sanskrit 
trayas, High-German drev. 

Thou, Sanskrit tvam, Greek ty and sy, Latin tu, 
High-German du. 

Thin in Old Norse is thunnr, Sanskrit tanu-s, 
Latin tenwis, High-German diinn. 

IX. P, Sanskrit p; Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic p. 


PH, Gothic f and b. 
B, Old High-German f and v. 


The last case is that of the labial spiritus in English 
or Gothic, which requires a hard labial as its sub- 
stitute in Sanskrit and the other Aryan dialects, 
except in Old High-German, where it mostly re- 
_appears as /f. 

The English to fare in ‘fare thee well’ corresponds 
to Greek pdros, a passage. Welfare, wohlfahrt, would 
be in Greek ewporia, opposed to aporta, helplessness. 

The English feather would correspond to a Sanskrit 
pattra, and this means a wing of a bird, i.e. the in- 
strument of flying, from pat, to fly,andtra. As to 
penna, it comes from the same root but is formed with 
another suffix. It would be in Sanskrit patana, 
pesna and penna in Latin, » 


GRIMM’S LAW. Q51 


- The English friend is a participle present. The 
verb frijén in Gothic means to love; hence, fryénd, 
a lover. It is the Sanskrit pri, to love. 

The English few is the same word as the French 
pew. Few, however, is not borrowed from Norman- 
French, but the two are distant cousins. Pew goes. 
back to paucus; few to A.S. féawe, Gothic fawar; and 
this is the true Gothic representative of the Latin 
paucus. O.H.G. foh. 


GENERAL TABLE OF GRimmw’s LAw, 


1 2 3 4/5] 6 7 8 9 

{ SektiGe ee | Sh) an (ny Lon (a) | een an. by k t p 

ERM 5 a ob 2 x ) ob ay pte fh Ve K T T 

Lauer eee cept (eV) f(a tet (bj) | eeaid- 1. b equ t p 
Old Irish . ; g d b g | da] b? | ¢(ch) | t (th) | (p)? 

Old Slavonic. . EZ d b gz|dj]{ b k t p 

Lithuanian . . 4 d b raat fol 1G k t Pp 
COUDICN, hus 2, g d b k | t | (p)?|be(f)| thd | fb 
Old High-German k t Pp ch |zz|fph}| hgk d fb 


The Theory of Grimm’s Law. 


So much for the facts comprehended under the 
name of Grimm’s Law. What is even more im- 
portant however than the facts, is the question, . 
whether they can be accounted for. Various theories 
have been started to account for this far-reaching 
change, and as they touch some of the fundamental 
principles of our science, we shall have to examine 
some of them more carefully. 

In spite of repeated protests, many scholars, chiefly 
encouraged by the example of Schleicher, will 
continue to treat consonants and vowels as things 
existing by themselves. They speak of a letter as 


252 “CHAPTER V. 


produced at a certain time, then changing gradually 
by growing stronger or weaker, being assimilated or 
elided, and all this without any reference to the 
speaker, without whom after all no letter has any 
existence whatever. If scholars would always think 
clearly, and remain conscious of the metaphorical 
character of the language they are using, there would 
be little harm in their speaking of a Sanskrit dh 
being changed into a Greek 0, or of a Greek 6 being 
changed into a Gothic d. I am not so pedantic as 
to cavil at such statements, so long as they are 
used for the sake of brevity only. But when such 
phrases are taken literally, and when the change of 
Greek treis into Gothic threis, and Old High-German 
drei is represented as an historical process, it seems 
high time indeed to protest. Why have all accurate 
scholars so strongly protested against looking upon 
Sanskrit as the mother of Greek and Latin, if 
Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit may be represented as the 
mother of Gothic? Is Gothic to be treated as a more 
modern language than Sanskrit or Greek or Latin, 
because we happen to know it only in the fourth 
century of our era? And again, is Old High-German 
to be treated as a more modern dialect than Gothic, be- 
cause its literature dates from the eighth century only ? 
Are all the lessons of Greek dialectology to be thrown 
away, when we approach the dialects of Germany ? 
No Greek scholar would now venture to derive Attic 
from Doric, or Doric from Attic, nor would he allow 
the existence of a uniform Greek language, a kind of 
pre-Homeric Kow, from which the principal dialects 
of Greece were derived. Why then should we mete 


GRIMM’S LAW. 253 


a different measure to German dialects, such as Low- 
German, High-German, and Scandinavian? Are 
Greek onviw, Lat. spuo, to spit, to be treated as 
phonetic corruption of Sk. shthyu (shthiw)? Is 
Sanskrit satam more modern than Latin centwm? 
There are rules of Dialectic Growth, though they are 
not so strict as the rules of Phonetic Decay. We 
may say, for instance, with perfect certainty that 
Sk. s never varies dialectically with Latin p, but we 
have no right to say that in the course of time kw 
dwindled down to p, or p to kw, however plausible 
the imperceptible degrees of phonetic transition 
between kw and p may be. If it is contrary to the 
principles of the Science of Language to derive Attic 
téssares from Doric tétores, or Doric tétures from 
Aeolic pessyres, why then should Old High-German 
drei be treated as the degenerate descendant of Gothic 
threis? No Sanskrit dh did ever become th, no 
Greek th did ever become Gothic d. Nay, we must 
go further and say that no Gothic d ever became a 
High-German ¢, as little as High-German ¢ ever 
became a Gothic d. 


Webeneinander and Nacheinander. 


The fact is that what Grimm called Lautverschie- 
bung has nothing to do with Phonetic Change, but is 
simply and solely a case of Dialectic Growth. 

Grimm looked upon Lautverschiebung as the 
result of a phonetic change, which took place very 
gradually. He actually fixed the beginning of the 
first change, the Gothic, about the second half of the 
first century A.D., and supposed that it was carried 


254 CHAPTER V. 


through in the second and third centuries. More 
towards the West of Europe, he says, it may have 
commenced even at an earlier time, and have been 
succeeded by the second change, the Old High- 
German, the beginning of which is difficult to find, 
though we see it developed in the seventh century.’ 
There is one very plausible argument in support of 
this theory that the changes from d to ¢ and from ¢ 
to z were historical changes, following each other in 
regular succession, and that the first change from the 
classical to the Gothic stage took place about the 
second half of the first century after Christ, and the 
second change from the Gothic to the Old High- 
German stage about the sixth or seventh century. It 
is said that the name of Strassburg occurs in Gregory 
of Tours? (died 594) as Strataburgum ; in the Geo- 
grapher of Ravenna,’ in the middle of the seventh 
century, as Stratisburgo; whereas, in the eighth 
century, it has been changed into Strazpuruc. It is 
supposed, therefore, that, from the middle of the 
seventh to the middle of the eighth century, the third 
change took place, all mediw becoming tenues, all 
tenues becoming aspirate, and all aspirate medve. 
Now does anybody really believe that, some day or 
other, the people of Strassburg became aware that 
they called their town no longer Strataburgum but 
Strazpuruc, and that accordingly they changed the 
name in all official documents? Is there not a much 
more simple explanation, viz. that about the eighth 
century the High-German races became gradually 


1 Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, i. p. 487. 
2 Hist. Franc. ix. 36; x.16. _ 3 231, 7; 282, 2. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 255 


more preponderant in Germany, whereas the Low- 
German tribes, the Goths and Saxons, in particular, 
disappeared more and more from the political and 
literary stage? In the famous Oath of Strassburg (A.D. 
842) we still meet with such Low-German forms as 
dag, godes, thing. These High-German races, during 
their intercourse with their Low-German neighbours 
and enemies, had naturally become aware of the fact 
that, whenever they pronounced ¢, d, z, their neighbours 
pronounced di, th, t, and the same in the guttural and 
labial series. Under such circumstances a kind of 
habit became established, which led the speakers of 
High-German to replace without any conscious effort 
the sounds of Low-German by the corresponding 
sounds of High-German, and vice versd. We can 
watch the same curious process even now, when we 
try to speak a foreign language, and particularly 
when, while speaking High-German, we try to ex- 
press ourselves in Low-German.? Certain phonetic 
rules become established in our mind, which we 
obey without being aware of it. Thus, if the High- 
German tribes of the Frankish empire had once 
become impressed with the general idea, that where 
their Low-German predecessors or neighbours said 
k, t, p, g, d, b, h, th, f, they always said ch, 2, f, k, t, 
p, g, d, b, nothing was more natural than that they 
should apply the same rule to foreign words which they 
heard either from their Low-German compatriots or 


1 A child which pronounced all 7’s as /’s was taught after some time 
how to pronounce the r. The result was, that it pronounced new words 
which really began with J with r, saying rong instead of long, &c, In 
Gaelic Pascha, Easter, is Caisg, in Welsh Pasg. 


256 CHAPTER V. 


from the Roman provincials. Over and over again 
they had observed that, where in Low-German there 
was at, there was in their own language a z; there- 
fore, when they received a foreign word like Strata- 
burgum, they at once received it on the same terms, 
and changed Strata to Strdz. The second word was 
really German, and it would therefore at once be 
replaced by the High-German puruc. The same 
process 1s repeated in many foreign words which Old 
High-German borrowed either directly from Latin 
or indirectly from Low-German.! Thus pondus is in 
Gothic pund, in O.H.G. phunt; sinapi, G. sinap, 
O.H.G. senaf; persicum, O.H.G. phersich; cuprum, 
O.H.G. chuphar; strata, O.H.G. stréza; Turicum, 
O.H.G. Zurich; tegula, O.H..G. ziegal, &e. It is 
curious that O.H.G. zins, the Latin census, should in 
Old Saxon appear as tins. It is by no means neces- 
sary to suppose that these foreign words should all 
have passed through a Gothic channel before they 
reached Old High-German. Such a view would be 
necessary only if we looked upon Old High-German 
as the offspring of Gothic. All that is really re- 
quired for the explanation of the change of Latin 
words in Old High-German is to admit that the 
High-Germans possessed a phonetic sentiment which 
would lead them at once to translate any foreign t 
by z, d by t, th by d, and which therefore would 
make them adopt Strataburgum as Strazpwruc with- 
out a moment's thought as to whether it was origi- 
nally a Latin or a Low-German word, being satisfied 


1 See W. ib sare fae, Die Umdeutschung fremder Worter. Basel, 
1862. j 


GRIMM’S LAW. 957 


that, before it should enter into High-German, it 
would have to submit to the same rules to which all 
other words seemed to have submitted. 

And if on these grounds I feel convinced that the 
consonantal system in High-German had become 
settled long before the seventh century, I feel equally 
certain that the consonantal system of Gothic does not 
date from the first century of our era only. We have 
no reason to suppose that what is called the classical 
system, or the first stage in Grimm’s Law, prevailed 
at any time in Gothic. The interesting researches 
of Dr. W. Thomson! have at all events established 
this fact, that at a much earlier period, when we see 
Low-German dialects, in some respects more primi- 
tive than Gothic, reflected on the surface of the 
Finnish language, their consonantal system was the 
same as at the time of Ulfilas. 

When we compare, for instance, ten, the A.S. tén, 
with Sanskrit dasan, Greek déka, Latin decem, we 
have no right to look upon ten as the result of 
phonetic corruption or decay. Yen may be called a 
phonetic corruption of a Teutonic typical form tehun 
(Gothic tahun), but tehun has as much right as 
Sanskrit dasan, so far as its consonantal structure is 
concerned. The loss of the medial h in tehwn, which 
represents an original k, is no doubt due to laziness 
of pronunciation. But not so the ¢ in place of d, or 
the / in place of s. These can be treated as dialectic 
only, i.e. as one out of many possible ways of 
permanently fixing the Aryan numeral ten, the pro- 


1 Uber den Einfluss der Germanischen Sprachen auf die Finnisch- 
Lappischen, Halle, 1870, p. 124. 


iT; S) 


258 CHAPTER V. 


nunciation of which must have varied from the first 
in various families, tribes, and nations, as we see it at 
the present day among tribes not united as yet by a 
common literature, whether in Africa, America, or 
Australia. 


Grimm’s Law in Africa and Polynesia. 


In Africa, for instance, we have what is meant by 
Grimm’s Law quite as much as in Europe. The 
various members of the Bantu family stand to each 
other very much in the same relation as Greek and 
Gothic. They share a large capital of words and 
forms in common, but they have at the same time 
diverged so much that even the members of the 
South-Eastern Branch of the Bantu family of speech, 
the Setshudna, Tekeza and Zulu Kafir, are now 
mutually unintelligible. As to deriving one from the 
other, it is impossible. They must therefore be treated 
as three independent varieties. And what do we see? 
Just what we see in Greek and Gothic. When Kafir 
has nasalised tenuis, Setshuana has the aspirate, 
Tekeza nasal only or spiritus asper or lenis. 


Kafir nk nt mp 
Setshuana, kh th ph 
Tekeza forwa n m 


There are exceptions, but Bleek, like Grassmann 
and Verner, has been able to account for most of 
them. 

Secondly, a nasalised media in Kafir and Tekeza 
appears as unnasalised tenuis in Setshuana. 


Kafir and Tekeza ng nd mb 
Setshuana k t p 


GRIMM’S LAW. 959 


Thirdly, the nasalised v of Kafir and f of Tekeza 
(sometimes z) is represented in Setshuana by p. 


Kafir mv nz 
Tekeza nf mf 
Setshuana p p 


Fourthly, k, ¢, p in Kafir are represented in Set- 
shudna by x, 7, (the r being probably akin to 2), 
while the other cognate languages follow this rule: 


Kafir k t p 
Sesuto h f 
West Setshuana x r h 
Tekeza k OG. 


For further information on this subject I must refer 
to Bleek’s Comparative Grammar and to his article 
On Grinm’s Law on South Africa, It is curious 
that he too labours under the impression that some 
of these consonants must be looked upon as more 
primitive than others, and that therefore k is derived 
from ng, 7 from t, and not wice versa. But though 
this may be so in phonetic theory, it is not always so 
in historical truth, and Dr. Bleek has to confess, as 
we have, ‘that there are instances in which we are 
not quite certain of the direction which the current 
of transmutation has taken, and some in which it is 
quite possible that the different sounds occurring in 
the South-Eastern Branch languages are to be de- 
duced, not from each other, but from a primary form 
which is now only met with in other Bantu lan- 
guages. Thus, when a Kafir 2 corresponds to a 
Tekeza t, and to a Setshuana ¢s or yA—to which are 
we to give the palm of priority?’ Is this not exactly 
the same as when we have to say, ‘When an Old 

8 2 


260 CHAPTER V. 


High-German z corresponds to a Gothic ¢, and to a 
Sanskrit d—to which are we to give the palm of 
priority?’ Phonetically it may be to ¢, but historic- 
ally to none, because each represents an independent 
phase in the settlement of the language, such settle- 
ment taking place in different localities, and at 
different times, and, at all events in the beginning, 
not nacheinander, but nebeneinander. 

And not in Africa only, but wherever language can 
still be watched in its dialectic growth, phonetic 
phenomena which can be called by the name of 
Grimm’s Law have been discovered. Dr. Pope has 
an article in the Indian Antiquary (1876, p. 157) on 
Grimm’s Law as between Tamil and Kanarese, and 
changes analogous to the same Law and exhibiting 
the unsettled phonetic state of language previous to 
its being reduced to writing have been carefully 
described in Codrington’s Melanesian Languages 
(1885), pp. 198-219.1 

Of course, phonetic rationalists will say: Surely, 
there must have been one primitive form for each 
word, and in this primitive form each consonant 
must have been fixed. If therefore there was an 
Aryan word for ten, its consonantal skeleton must 
have been D-K-N, which afterwards sank down in 
Gothic to T-H-N, in Old High-German to Z-H-N. 
But where is the must? First of all, the change of 
D to T, and of D to Z is in no sense of the word a 
sinking down, a weakening, or a corruption. Not 


' See also Hale’s Polynesian Grammar, p. 232. The New Zealand 
poe is represented by foe in Tonga, just as Sk. pati is represented in 
Gothic by fath-s. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 261 


even if we thought that the Old High-German form 
passed through an intermediate Gothic stage, would 
the change of T to Z be a corruption in the strict 
phonetic sense of the word. It involves no lightening 
of muscular effort, which is at the root of nearly all 
that is called phonetic corruption. But why should 
D-K-N be considered as the primitive form? Because 
it occurs in a majority of the Aryan languages? 
Fortunately majorities do not yet rule supreme in 
the Science of Language, which has often succeeded 
in discovering in one lonely so-called anomalous 
form the legitimate heir of a long line of ancestors. 

But let us take another word. Was the Sanskrit 
root BHAR more primitive than Greek PHER? 
Were both Greek pépw and Latin fero really derived 
from Sanskrit bhar&émi? And if not, why should 
Gothic bairan be an offshoot either of Sanskrit bhar, 
or of Greek and Latin fer, or possibly, like advimatar, 
of both? Again, when Gothic bairan stands to San- 
skrit bhar, exactly as O.H.G. peran does to Greek 
pher, why should O.H.G. peran be derived from 
Gothic bairan and not from Greek pher? 

Perhaps most scholars would be inclined, after a 
little reflection, to yield with regard to Gothic, and 
place it on a level with so-called classical languages, 
whether Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin. They would admit 
that the tenues are as good as the media, the mediz as 
good as the aspirates, whether surd or sonant, and that 
the aspirates or breathings are as good as the tenues. 


Was High-German derived from Gothic? 


But no such privilege is to be granted to High- 


262 CHAPTER V. 


German. It is to be treated as a secondary language, 
as a corruption of Gothic, or at all events of some form 
of Low-German. Why isthat? Attic is more modern, 
and in many respects more corrupt than Doric. Does 
any scholar derive Attic from Doric? Is Welsh 
derived from Irish, or Spanish from Italian? Not 
even amado can be treated as a corruption of amato, 
though both presuppose a Latin amatus. What has 
the date of a literature to do with the age of a lan- 
guage? If High-German had come to our knowledge 
for the first time in Hebel’s Allemannische Gedichte, 
that would not make it modern as a language. The 
gradual spreading of High-German goes hand in hand 
with the spreading of High-German influence, whether _ 
political, religious, or literary. Whether it began in the 
fifth, or sixth, or seventh! century, itis still going on in 
the nineteenth. Braune (Bevtrdge,i. 1-56) tells us that 
the High-German change started from Oberdeutsch- 
land and spread northward, the first and most vigorous 
stage going furthest, the others getting weaker succes- 
sively. Under the first stage he comprehends the 
change of ¢ into z, of p and k after vowels into f and 
ch; under the second the-change of p’s, which had 
still been preserved (when initial, medial after con- 
sonants, and if strengthened) into ph, rarely into /; 
under the third the affrication of k and the change of the 
two remaining medic into tenues. He maintains that 
in Oberdeutschland the change in all its three stages 
is anterior to any of our literary documents, in Fran- 
conia the first stage completely so, while the second 


1 Scherer, Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, 1868, p. 63. See Die 
Sprache Deutschlands, von P. Piper, 1880, i. 223. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 263 


can still be watched, and the third has never reached 
so far. The transition of th to d, he thinks, can be 
followed historically over the whole of Germany. In 
Oberdeutschland th vanishes in the second half of the 
eighth century, in East Franconia, saec. ix. init., in 
South Franconia, saec. ix. med., in Middle Franconia 
still later, and so likewise in Low Franconia. 

All this may be perfectly true, though the evidence 
is naturally very uncertain and fragmentary. But, if 
it is true,it proves no more than that certain phonetic 
changes rise to the surface at certain times, and reach 
certain literary and political centres at certain periods. 
It proves in no way that they spring into existence 
at the very moment when for the first time they 
become visible to us. 

In order to give an idea of the artificial contriv- 
ances which have to be resorted to if the changes 
comprised under Grimm’s Law are to be accounted 
for by the phonetic character of each letter, I shall 
give a few specimens of the more important theories. 

Grimm thought that the change began with the 
medize. Bopp thought that it began with the tenuis, 
which became an aspirate and an aspirate a media, 
When more minute physiological reasons were looked 
for to account for these changes, the great difficulty 
was, of course, to find out what exact sound was 
meant to be expressed by each letter in different 
MSS. of different writers in different parts of Germany 
and at different times. Always starting from the con- 
viction thata t became a th (z) and a th (z) ad, Raumer 
held that the aspirates contained a check and an 
aspiration, and that therefore when the pure spirant 


264 CHAPTER V. 


had been reached (F and H) no further advance was 
possible. Hence he thought it was that Gothic f 
remained O.H.G. /, Gothic h O.H.G. h, while Gothic 
th varied between th, dh, and d. Between kh, th, ph, 
and g, d, 6, he admitted an intermediate stage, gh, dh, 
bh, and he looked upon the reinforcing of simple tenues 
and the vanishing of the aspiration in aspirates as the 
motive power of the whole process. 

Curtius ascribed the initiation of Lautverschiebung 
to the aspirates, which were changed into either mediz 
(Gothic) or tenues (O.H.G.). But when he ascribes 
these consonantal changes to ‘ vigour, boldness, and 
youthful energy,’ he is simply dealing in’ phonetic 
mythology, like many of his successors. If the change 
of d into ¢, and possibly even of ¢ into th, is youthful 
and vigorous, what is the change of th into d ? 

Scherer introduced still greater refinements, all 
based on the supposition that phonetic changes take 
place by slow degrees, and become more intelligible 
if we can account for every one of the minute degrees 
of change through which they passed. From a purely 
physiological point of view, such analytical researches 
are very useful, but as explaining an historical process 
they seem to be of very little help. I shall give one 
instance only. In order to explain the transition from 
Gothic th into O.H.G. d, Scherer writes: ‘It is more 
important for us to define as accurately as possible the 
pronunciation of the dh, which lies beyond the O.H.G. 
d, and the nature of this transition. We have here 
no other guide but English analogy. English s‘ (surd 
th) is a pure spirant, English 24 (sonant th) is often 
sounded with a slight initial check, as d+ 24,’ 


GRIMM’S LAW. 265 


I doubt the fact, if Scherer means that there is more 
of d audible in thow than of ¢ in thin. But granting 
it, what should we gain ? 

Scherer continues: ‘This occasional, allowable, but 
not necessary check will be admissible likewise in the 
character of our O.H.G. dh. Nay, we may see in it, 
with Raumer, the very germ of the change, so that 
theoretically the sound to be changed would have to 
be represented by d* z+ (ddh). Hence it is not the 
spirant itself which is changed immediately into a 
media, but because the sonant spirant likes to take 
the support of a slight check, it might happen that 
this check was again deprived of the accompanying 
fricative sound.’ 

All this is very ingenious physiologically, but for 
our own historical purposes we gain nothing from it. 
Are we to suppose that one person, when he was a 
boy, said th, when a man, dh, and ddh, and when an 
old man, @; or that one generation said th, the next 
dh, the next ddh, the next d? Scherer himself shrinks 
from that conclusion, for he writes: ‘We must not 
look upon s*, 2*, d* 2‘, and d as four stages in a race- 
course, which had needs to be traversed before the poor 
hunted sound could find rest. D* z* may have been 
heard occasionally from the very first, after z* existed, 
and z* may have been heard occasionally to the very 
end, so long as there was d‘z*. Nay, from the begin- 
ning of the softening (becoming sonant) of th (s*) till 
the accomplishment of the change into d, the relation 
of the pronunciation dz‘ to the pronunciation 24 was 
probably unchangingly the same, and the former need — 
not have preponderated. If images could clear up 


— 266 ‘CHAPTER V. 


anything, I should say: the media hovers unseen over — 
the sonant spirant, and may appear at any moment ; 
and for that very reason it belongs to the nature of 
that sound.’ } 

I do not think that all this, not even the imagery, 
carries us further than the fact that instead of Gothic 
th, some Old High-German writers at different times 
and in different localities tried to indicate the sound 
which they heard, and which we ourselves shall never 
hear, by th, dh, and d, and that we may gather from 
their way of writing, that initially they heard some 
kind of aspiration besides the t or d, while medially 
that aspiration was not perceived, and therefore not 
written by them. As these attempts at writing what 
they imagined they heard, were the work of indi- 
viduals, we shall be much more justified in looking 
upon the changes which they tried to express in 
writing as scattered links of a lost chain than as 
representing what are called the slow and imper- 
ceptible degrees of transition in the same effort of 
pronunciation. Nothing is so fatal to all sound 
reasoning as this idea of minute and imperceptible 
degrees of transition. Everything can be explained 
by minute and imperceptible degrees of change, only 
we find that these imperceptible or almost impercep- 
tible degrees of change produce in the end no percep- 
tible result whatsoever. 

It does great credit to Mr. Sweet’s acumen as a 
phonetician that he formerly perceived this fallacy of 
imperceptible transition. In his History of English 
Sounds (p. 18) he says: ‘From this we can easily 
deduce another law, namely that the changes in early 


GRIMM’S LAW. 267 


languages are not gradual, but per saltum. A clear 
appreciation of this principle is of considerable impor- 
tance, as many philologists have assumed that in such 
changes as that of a back into a front consonant (San- 
skrit k into k) the tongue was shifted forwards by 
imperceptible gradations,’ 


Exceptions to Grimm’s Law. 


Grimm’s Law is not without exceptions, but fortu- 
nately they are exceptions which prove the rule, that 
is to say, which can be accounted for from the very 
nature of the rule. 


Lottner. 


It was Lottner who in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xi. 161, 
brought the first powerful indictment against Grimm’s 
Law, showing numerous cases and whole classes of 
cases in which it failed to act. Some of them had 
been pointed out by Grimm himself, more particu- 
larly with regard to Old High-German. Here, in 
fact, the exceptions were almost as numerous as the 
regular changes. Taking the texts of Isidorus, Otfried, 
and Tatianus as the principal representatives of Old 
High-German, Grimm constructed a table showing 
the different ways in which the Lautverschiebung 
was carried out by them. 


EPO ROE San Bh rad Egg f 6 ed < Cae 5 | eater EEE 
pericULttia.: t Fu fi ek CH Ht ie eer) 
Isidor, init.: B F G CH H D Z DH 
Tied sve El eV: G HH H D ZS -DH 

fine CAP He Cote te 75D. 


* The sign ! shows that the Lautverschiebung stops in Gothic. 


268 CHAPTER V. 


Otfried, init.: B PH F GAs kK Fei D247 ante 
med.: _B oResh G CH H A Ar 8 
in ee ae Eee sh ak dee Ar YE, 
Tatian, init.: B PH F Spo oa teil Lee 
med? sO Bs2H RV. G HH H TS Zee 
fin<ieb Bist Gay HO TZ 
Grassmann. 


The first, however, to eliminate or account for a 
number of these anomalies, as pointed out by Lottner 
in the working of Grimm’s Law in Gothic, was Grass- 
mann. In the twelfth volume of Kuhn’s Zeitschrift 
(1863) he undertook to prove that though it had been 
accepted as a fundamental principle that no Aryan 
roots could begin and end with an aspirate, there 
must once have been a whole class of roots beginning 
and ending with aspirates. He did not succeed in 
proving this. What he really did prove was no more 
than that there were certain roots in which the aspira- 
tion might affect either the first or the last consonant, 
and that in that case the consonant left without the 
aspiration would be either a tenuis or a media in 
Greek ; a tenuis, when in the first, a media, when in 
the second place; in Sanskrit, always a media. 

The principle, therefore, that Aryan roots cannot 
in actual use end and begin with aspirates remains 
untouched. It is evidently a principle which rests on 
some general phonetic foundation, and which shows its 
influence in various ways. For instance, when a root 
beginning with an aspirate has to be reduplicated, the 
aspiration is dropt, as in Greek r/-@nu, in Sanskrit da- 
dhami. Intensive forms, such as bhari-bhar, are no 
exceptions; the exception is rather in dani-dhvamzs,. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 269 


In Sanskrit all roots ending in gh, dh, dh, bh, or h, 
and beginning with g, d, d, or b, aspirate the initials, 
if the finals lose their aspiration. Thus duh becomes 
dhuk, budh becomes bhut. And this takes place also 
before certain terminations beginning with dhy, bh, 
and s, so that we get bhut-su for budh-su, abhud-. 
dhvam for abudh-dhvam. In Greek the same 
tendency manifests itself in words beginning with r or 
0, so that we have ra¢ds, grave, érdpnv, but bdrra ; 
tptxes, but Opéi, &e. In Latin, on the contrary, forms 
like fefellz, in Gothic like hathalt, are tolerated. 

In Gothic, however, we meet with a number of roots 
beginning and ending with media. These roots in 
Gothic cannot be looked upon as having passed 
through a previous Sanskrit or Greek stage. They 
must be looked upon as independent, though parallel 
forms, and as having escaped the penalties inflicted on 
two successive aspirates in Sanskrit and Greek, be- 
cause they never had aspirates, but mediz as initial 
and final letters. 

Taking, for instance, the Gothic deiga, tAdcow, 
to form, we should require for it a Sanskrit root 
DHIGH, with initial and final aspiration. Such a 
root does not and cannot exist. But there is the root 
DIH, which has in the present deh-mi, I form, but 
dhekshi, thou formest, the aspiration being thrown 
on the initial, when lost in the final. 

We might thus admit two forms of this root, DIH 
and DHIG. If we translate the former into Greek 
we get tenuis, vowel, aspirate, TIX, from which 
Toixos ; 1f we translate the latter, we get OIT, aspirate, 
vowel, media, in @iyyavw, Latin fing-o. According 


270 CHAPTER V. 


to this rule Grassmann helps us to account for a 
whole class of exceptions in Gothic where we find 
two mediz corresponding to Sanskrit media and 
aspirate. . 

With regard to Greek it should be borne in mind. 
that it possesses a number of roots in which media 
and aspirate vary, though both correspond to a 
Sanskrit aspirate. Thus we have Sk. STAMBH, 
to stamp down, to fix, oréud-vdov, stamped or pressed 
olives or grapes, acreudys, untrodden, unshaken, ordp- 
gos, scoffing; but also oréyBw, I shake, atoBew, I 
scold.t Likewise : 

Sk. bidhna, bottom ; mvOuqv and mivda€, bottom of vessel. 
Sk. ARDH, to thrive, to grow; dAéaive, I heal, pass. [ 


become healed, and dddaiva, I make to grow. 
Sk. Amhu, narrow; dyxe and éyyvs. 


In other cases the media prevails altogether in 
Greek. 


Sk. kimbha, jar; KkvpBos. 

Sk. LABH ; AapBava, AaBeir. 

Sk. VARDH, to grow; pia for Fpd-ja, radix, Goth. wawrt-s, 
root. 

Sk. BHRAM; Bpéua, but fremo. 

Sk. aham, I, Greek eyo; Goth. tk. 

Sk. mahdt, great, Greek peya ; Goth. mikil. 


The following are the principal words in which, 
according to Grassmann’s Law, double media in Gothic 
can be accounted for: 


Sk, GARDH, Goth. grédus, hunger, greed ; also Russ. golod. 

Sk, DABH, rud-Ads, G. daub-s, dumb-s. 

Sk, DAH, to burn (rad, @dmrw), G. dag-s, day; AS. deg, 
O.H.G. tac; also to dawn, AS. dagian. 


1 Translation of Rig-veda, i. p. ci. Brugmann, Grundriss, § 469, 8. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 271 


Sk. DIH, see above. 

Sk. DUH, to milk, évyarnp, G. dauhtar (bh for g); also daug ; 
Lith. dukte. 

Sk. DRUH (Zend drug), déAyo (?), Old N. draug-, goblin ; 
Old Sax. be-driogen ; O.H.G. triugu ; also Celt. drog. 

Sk. BANDH, to bind; sevOepds, weiopua, cable; G. binda, I 
bind ; bandi, bond. 

(BIDH) weid-opat, mioris ; fides, fidus, foedus. 

Sk. BARH, to make strong; G. bairgan, duddoow, bergen ; 
bairga, mountain, in bairga-hei, mountain-place. 

Sk. Bahu-s, rayis, thick, strong, big. 

Sk. Bahu-s, mixvus. 

Sk. BHUG, deiya, fugio; G. biuga. 

Sk. BUDH, rvv6-dv-opa, mevdopa, G. anabiudan, to bid, 
Jaur-biudan, to forbid; also Russ. budit’. 

Sk. Budhna-s, mv6-pnv, fundus, Old 8S. bod-m, O.H.G. 
bodam, bottom. 


Grassmann extends his principle even further. 
There are several roots in Sanskrit, beginning with 
a surd aspirate kh, kh, ph, which presuppose earlier 
forms beginning with sk, sk, sp, changed to skh, 
skh, sph, and then to kh, kh, ph. 

Thus KHAN, to dig, is rightly traced to a more 
primitive SKAN and SKA, of which traces remain 
in Zend skyaiti, he cuts, Greek cydw, I slit. Without 
the s the root KAN would explain can-alis, what has 
been dug, a ditch: 

In the same manner then, K HID, to cut, presup- 
poses a root SAID, Zend skid, Lat. scindo, but Greek 
oxi¢w for cx1s-jw. Now, in Gothie we have skaidan, 
to separate, and the question is, why should Gothic 
d represent Greek d. The k does not change, because 
it is protected by the s, but the d remained unchanged, 
because it represents an original dh, which only 
became d@ in Sanskrit after & had become kh, thus 


272 CHAPTER V. 


necessitating the change of aspirate into media in 
the final consonant. Another instance is KHAD, 
to cover, instead of SKAD, or more originally 
SKADH, Zend skad, which Grassmann recognises 
in Goth. skad-ws, shade, A.S. sceadu, accounting 
again for the irregular d as representing a more 
original final dh. It is true that this last ap- 
plication of Grassmann’s theory has. not been gener- 
ally accepted. Still there is no better one to take 
its place. . } 


Verner. 


There still remained, even after Grassmann’s ex- 
planations, a whole class of exceptions in Gothic 
which seemed to defy all reasoning. Why, for 
instance, should Sanskrit pitar be Gothic fadar, 
AS. feder, and Sanskrit matar, A.S. mddor, while San- 
skrit bhratar appears rightly as Gothic bréthar, A.S. 
bréthor? This was a very old crux to comparative 
philologists, and though there were not wanting 
explanations of the phonetic process leading by 1m- 
perceptible degrees from t to th, dh, d, or from ¢ to 
th, which became divided into th and d, the real 
causa mali was left as dark as ever. Verner (K. Z. 
xxili. p. 102) by simply placing the Vedic accents 
on pitdr, matdr, bhr&tar, solved the problem, and 
came to the conclusion that whenever the old Vedic 
accent was on a vowel preceding the Sanskrit fenues, 
they had their regular Gothic representatives, namely 
h, th, f; while, if the accent was not there, they 
appeared in Gothic as g, d, 6. The same law applies 
to s in its relation to r (z), Certain compound 


GRIMM’S LAW. 273 


letters, such as ht, hs, ft, st, sk, sp, ss, are always 
excepted. 

Thus Sanskrit sap(t)4n, seven, having the accent 
on the second a, at least in the Veda, appears as 
sibun in Gothic. Sanskrit sasd, hare (for sAsa), is 
hara in Anglo-Saxon. Sanskrit snusha appears as 
snoru, but Sanskrit mfis remains in A.S. mis, 
Sanskrit n&sA is A.S. nosu. 

Still more important than these coincidences in 
single words are the traces of the working of the 
same law in several grammatical formations. If in 
Sanskrit the accent remains on the root-syllable of 
a verb, the final tenuis of that syllable in Low 
German takes aspiration; if, on the contrary, the 
accent in Sanskrit falls on the termination, the 
final consonant in Low German is media. In Gothic 
this change is but rarely observed, but in Anglo-Saxon 
we have 


from cwe%San, praet. cwiiS, plur. cw&don, part. cweden. 


slean, » sloh,’.., slégon, ~ ,, slagen. 
teon, for tedhan, ,, tedh, ,, tugon, » togen. 
cedsam, , ceds, ,, curon, Se COrens: 


This change which was formerly explained from 
a preference for aspirates as final and of medic as 
medial, Verner traces back to the old change of 
accent in Sanskrit, where the three persons of the 
‘singular in the reduplicated perfect have the accent 
always on the radical syllable, in the plural on the 
termination ; thus giving us bibhéda, but bibhidima. 

The termination ta of participial adjectives has in 
Sanskrit the acute. Hence sru-ta, heard, in-clutus, 
kAvtos, A.S. hldd, loud. 

18k ik 


274: CHAPTER V. 


Again,all causative verbs in Sanskrit have the accent 
on the causal suffix, bhAar-dya, ved-aya, &c. In Low 
German, except again in Gothic where the aspirate 
prevails by false analogy, the final tenues of causal 
verbs have become media. Thus from lithan, to go, 
AS. lédan, to lead; from nesan, genesen, AS. 
nerjan, to save. 

Feminines in Sanskrit take the accent on the 
feminine suffix i, e.g. matsya, fish, matsi, takshan, 
carpenter, takshni, bhdrtar, supporter, bhartri. 
Verner traces the influence of this Sanskrit accent 
of feminine suffixes in O.N. ylg-7, a she-wolf, repre- 
senting a German form wolgja, as against wolhwa, 
Goth. wulf-s. | 

He likewise accounts for the change of many Sh 
terminations beginning with ¢ in Sanskrit, and show- 
ing d in Low German by the fact that the accent in 
Sanskrit is always on the radical syllable, never on the 
vowel immediately preceding the ¢t. Hence Goth. bat- 
rada= Sanskrit bharate; Goth. bairaidaw= Sanskrit 
bhareta; Goth. bairanda = Sanskrit bharante; 
while Goth. bairaza, 2 p. sing. pres. ind. passive = 
Sanskrit bharase. 

As all past participles in Sanskrit have the accent 
on t4, it follows that in Gothic we must have da. 
Hence Gothic tamz-da, = Sanskrit dami-tés (dantas), 
domitus. 

The abstract suffix ti in Sanskrit has sometimes 
the accent, sometimes not. In Gothic we find cor- 
responding to it either thi or di. But of the other 
abstract suffixes, tA is always without the accent, 
while tva has the accent, and so we find in Gothie tha 


GRIMM’S LAW. 275 


for ta (diupitha, depth), but dwa for tva (thiwadva, 
servitude). 

The change of accent between words such as ménas 
and sumanas, pévos and edyeris,is equally reflected in 
German, and even the 7 in better, Goth. batizan, owes 
its existence to the fact that the accent of compara- 
tives and superlatives in Sanskrit is always on the 
first syllable. 

Of course, there are exceptions to all this, arising 
chiefly from what is called false analogy, but which is 
often a very legitimate desire for uniformity. The s, 
for instance, of the nom. sing. becomes z or 7 through- 
out, even where the accent would require an s (O.N, 
ulf-r, wolf), because it would not do to have two 
terminations of the nom. sing. 

It is very important also to remember that in 
many cases it is doubtful where the accent was in 
Sanskrit, and that in Sanskrit itself the accent often 
changes between old and new texts. Thus Sanskrit 
pati ought to be Gothic fathi, but it is fadi. Sanskrit 
katara ought to be Gothic hwadar, but it is hwathar. 
Here the accent may originally have been on the first 
syllable, as it is in 4ntara and tttara. As it is, 
Gothic hwathar corresponds to Ionic xérepos. 

Still, on the whole, Verner’s observation cannot be 
questioned, and it only remains to ask, how it can be 
accounted for. It is clearly a case of phonetic, not of 
dialectic change. We see here cause and effect, even 
though we do not know how the two hang together. 
Verner thought that the accent, being in Gothic no 
longer pitch only, but already stress, involved a more 
powerful action of the breath, and that, as in pro- 

Aly 


276 CHAPTER V. 


nouncing surd consonants the breath comes out more 
powerful, while in pronouncing sonant consonants it 
is much weaker, therefore the powerful breath of the 
accented vowel favoured surd consonants, while the 
moderate breath of the unaccented vowel would har- 
monise better with sonant letters (l.¢., p. 116). 

This may be so, but one cannot help asking, why the 
strong accent should only influence a succeeding, and 
not a preceding consonant? We are told that this 1s 
so, because the t in bhrat-ar belongs to the first syl- 
lable, while in mA-tar it belongs to the second. If 
that were the case, if the accent attracted the t 
towards the first syllable and made it in a certain 
sense final, then this might possibly supply an ex- 
planation of Verner’s Law, that is to say, of the fact of 
th being preserved in A.S. brdth-or, and changed into 
din A.S. mé-dér. Consonants, if final, often prefer 
aspiration at the end of words, while they are without 
it, if medial. Thus we have in Gothic hlazf from 
hlaib, gréf, but graban, gaf, but grban. 


Paul’s Law. 


What adds some weight to this theory is the fact 
that another change in the Teutonic languages which 
has first been observed by Paul and Kluge, admits of 
a very similar explanation. We find that in Teutonic 
words an 7, following an original k, h, t, p, and J, is as- 
similated by these consonants, unless the accent was on 
the preceding vowel. Thus Aryan dk-na and agh-na 
would in Teutonic appear as dh-na and dg-na, and 
remain so. But ak-nd, agh-nd would appear as ah-nd 
and ag-nd, both forms would then be assimilated as 


GRIMM’S LAW. 277 


ag-gd, and, what is even more peculiar, they would in 
the end appear as ak-kd. This rule is supposed to 
account for the following apparent exceptions to 
Grimm’s Law :—A.S. licctan, as compared with San- 
skrit lih, to lick, Gothic laigén, intermediate form 
lig-nd; A.S. full, Sanskrit pir-n4, intermediate 
fol-na.’ If, on the contrary, the accent is not on the 
vowel following the 7, we find no assimilation, but 
A.S. swefn, Sanskrit sva4p-na, sleep; Gothic auhn-s, 
Sanskrit 4sna, stone, oven. As in these cases the 
accent on the first syllable seems to have produced 
a kind of stop, and thus to have protected the n from 
being combined and assimilated, it may have done the 
same in Goth. bréth-ar, while in A.S. méd-dér the d, as 
standing between two vowels, was voiced. 

However, even though we may not be able to dis- 
cover the reason, the fact remains that in a large 
number of cases, we may actually conclude backward, 
so that if, under the circumstances described, a San- 
skrit tenuis appears in Gothic as aspirate, it would 
follow that the accent was on a preceding vowel, 
while, if it appears in Gothic as media, the accent 
could not have been there, It is a strange fact, if we 
consider that the motive power, the old Vedie, or, it 
may be, Aryan accent, had been changed already in 
post-vedic Sanskrit, that it was greatly modified in 
Greek and Latin, that in the Teutonic languages we 
knew nothing of it, that yet the difference between 
dead and death in English, between ziehen and 


? In Sanskrit, frn& has the accent on the first syllable, and ought 
therefore to have been wulna in Gothic, wulne in Anglo-Saxon, instead 
of wulla and wulle. 


278 CHAPTER V. 


gezogen, also of schneiden and geschnitten in German, 
should be determined by it. 


Reason of Change. 


We had laid it down before as a general principle 
that all change in language is due either to Dialectic 
Growth or to Phonetic Change, taking both words in 
their widest sense. If that is so, and if we ask now 
once more to which of these two causes the changes 
pointed out by Grimm, Grassmann, and Verner have 
to be assigned, our answer must be that the changes 
pointed out by Grimm and Grassmann have to be 
ascribed to Dialectic Growth, while the exceptions 
comprised under Verner’s Law can only be considered 
as the result of Phonetic Change, so far as that change 
is determined by what we called phonetic idiosyn- 
crasies. Those who imagine that they can explain 
the Lautverschiebung as a Nacheinander, as a phonetic 
change of t to th, of th to d, and of d to ¢, must ascribe 
to the Germanic tribes the most extraordinary perver- 
sion both of ear and of tongue. It is one thing to 
start from undifferentiated sounds and to differentiate 
them dialectically; it is quite another to start from 
a sound already differentiated, and then to change 
it in the same dialect in such opposite directions as d 
to t, t to th, and lastly th to d.  Phonetically, no 
doubt, everything can be explained ; historically such 
cross-purposes in language are impossible. 


Assibilation and Labialisation of k, g, gh. 


In explaining the changes comprehended under the 
general name of Grimm’s Law, I have not alluded to 


GRIMM’S LAW. 279 


the discoveries of Ascoli, Fick, and others as to the 
two or three classes of k's in the Aryan languages. 
I have treated all k’s as belonging to one and the 
same class, though it is easy to perceive that they 
appear under very different forms in different branches 
of Aryan speech. If the changes which they undergo’ 
affected their mode of articulation (Articulationsart), 
it would have been necessary to take notice of them 
under the head of Grimm’s Law. But as their 
changes are confined to the place of articulation 
(Articulationsort), it seemed better not to complicate 
the consideration of a phonetic process which, as I 
wished to show, is concerned exclusively with the 
dialectic variation between tenuis, media, and aspi- 
rata. 

The facts with regard to the threefold nature of 
k’s, g's and gh’s are shortly these :— 

There are in the Aryan languages three kinds of 
k’s, gs, and gh’s, which are generally designated as 
palatal, and velar, and to which a third class has to 
be added, which may be called simply guttwral. 

The palatal k’s may be defined as originally affected 
by a palatal glide, ky, the velar k’s as affected by a 
labial glide, kw, and the pure guttural k’s as unaffected 
by any glide. 

In one division of the Aryan languages, viz. in 
Sanskrit, Zend, Lituanian, Slavonic, Armenian and 
Albanian the palatal k's, g's, gh’s (ky, gy, ghy) appear 
assibilated; in the other division, viz. in Greek, 
Italian, Celtic (Irish), and Teutonic, they appear as 
pure h’s, g’s, and gh’s without assibilation. Thus we 
find in the assibilating division: Sk. satam, Lit. 


280 CHAPTER V. ~ 


szimta-s, in the non-assibilating division €-katov, cen- 
tum, Ir. cét, Goth. hund. 

There is the second class of k’s, called velar, which in 
the non-assibilating division are labialised and dental- 
ised, while they are not labialised or dentalised in 
the assibilating division. Thus we find in the non- 
assibilating division the base of the interrogative 
pronoun, in Greek, zo-, reo-, 71-, Latin quo, Celtic kwe, 
Gothic hwa, in the assibilating division, Sk. ka, Zend 
ka, Lit. ka. 

The general rule is that the assibilating languages 
do not labialise, and that the labialising languages do 
not assibilate their k’s, g’s, and gh’s. 

There is, however, a third division of k’s which are 
consistently neither assibilated in the assibilating nor 
labialised in the labialising languages, though they 
show traces of these two affections in certain words. 
Many of the words which have hitherto been referred 
to this class, require to be carefully sifted, as they are 
not always cognate, but only similar in sound. Thus, 
as we find the & in Lituanian kerpu, to shear, un- 
assibilated, it has been supposed that it ought to have 
been labialised in Greek xapzos, fruit, kpemov, sickle, 
and German herbist, harvest. But it has never been 
proved that xapzés and herbist are connected with 
carpo, to pull off. They are really derived from the 
root sar or sarp, to ripen, from which also corpus, 
and Sk. sar-tra. In «pom, the labialising is pre- 
vented by purely phonetic reasons, viz. by the 
following 7, and in carpo, if for parpo, by another 
purely phonetic influence, by dissimilation. Sk. 
kripana, sword, is unconnected. 


GRIMM’S LAW. 281 


Brugmann treats all non-assibilating /’s as velar, 
even though they are not labialised. This is quite 
right in all cases where phonetic reasons have been 
discovered which prevent labialisation. We know, 
for instance, that initial velar k’s are not labialised, if 
followed by consonants or by dark vowels, except by. 
false analogy. 

But after making all these deductions, there remains 
still a residuum of words where a k is neither assibi- 
lated, though it were palatal, nor labialised, though it 
were velar. These indifferentiated or imperfectly 
differentiated k’s must be left for the present ag con- 
stituting a separate class. 

For fuller information on this interesting, but com- 
plicated question I must refer to Ascoli’s Fonologia, 
1870; Fick, Die Spracheinheit, 1873; Bersu, Die 
Gutturalen, 1885 ; Brugmann, Grundriss, 1886. A 
very painstaking and creditable contribution has 
lately been made by Miss Helen Webster in her 
Doctor-dissertation, Zur Guttwralfrage im Gothischen, 
Boston 1889. 


282 CHAPTER V. 


APPENDIX. 


ON WORDS FOR FIR, OAK, AND BEECH. 


In the course of these illustrations of Grimm's law 
I wag led to remark on the peculiar change of mean- 
ing in Latin fagus, Greek phégés, and Gothic bdka. 
Phégés in Greek means oak, never beech; in Latin 
and Gothie fagus and béka signify beech, and beech 
only. No real attempt, as far as I know, has ever 
been made to explain how the same name came 
to be attached to trees so different in outward ap- 
pearance as oak and beech. In looking out for 
analogous cases, and trying to find out whether 
other names of trees were likewise used in different 
senses in Greek, Latin, and German, one other name 
occurred to me which in German means fir, and in 
Latin oak. At first sight the English word jir does 
not look very like the Latin quercus, yet it is the 
same word. If we trace fir back to Anglo-Saxon we 
find it there under the form of furh. According to 
Grimm’s Law, f points to p, h to k, so that in Latin 
we should have to look for a word the consonantal 
skeleton of which might be represented as p 7 ¢. 
Guttural and labial tenues change, and as Anglo- 


1 Theophrastus, De Historia Plantarum, fiieo eas 


APPENDIX. 283 


Saxon féower points to quattuor, and fif to quinque, 
so furh leads straight to Latin quercus, oak. In Old 
High-German, foraha is Pinus silvestris; in modern 
German /foéhre has the same meaning. But in a 
passage quoted from the Lombard laws of Rothar, 
jereha, evidently the same word, is mentioned as a - 
name of oak (roborem aut quercum quod est fereha), 
which shows that the radical vowel was e. Grimm, 
in his Dictionary of the German Language, gives 
ferch, in the sense of oak, blood, life. 

Tt would be easy enough to account for a change of 
meaning from fir, or oak, or beech, to tree in general, 
or vice versd. We find the Sanskrit dru, wood (ef. 
druma, tree, daru, log), the Gothic triu, tree, used 
in Greek chiefly in the sense of oak, drjs. The Irish 
darach, Welsh derw, mean oak, and oak only.1 But 
what has to be explained here is the change of mean- 
ing from fir to oak, and from oak to beech—i.e. from 
one particular tree to another particular tree. 

While considering these curious changes, I happened 
to read Sir Charles Lyell’s new work, ‘The Antiquity 
of Man, and I was much struck by the following 
passage (p. 8, seq.) :— 

The deposits of peat in Denmark, varying in depth from ten 
to thirty feet, have been formed in hollows or depressions in 
the northern drift or boulder formations hereafter to be 
described. The lowest stratum, two or three feet thick, con- 
sists of swamp peat, composed chiefly of moss or sphagnum, 
above which lies another growth of peat, not made up exclu- 
sively of aquatic or swamp plants. Around the borders of the 


bogs, and at various depths in them, lie trunks of trees, espe- 
cially of the Scotch fir (Pinus silvestris), often three feet 


! Grimm, Wéorterbuch, s. v. ‘ Fiche.’ 


284, CHAPTER V. 


in diameter, which must have grown on the margin of the 
peat-mosses, and have frequently fallen into them. This tree 
is not now, nor has ever been in historical times, a native of 
the Danish islands, and when introduced there has not thriven ; 
yet it was evidently indigenous in the human period, for 
Steenstrup has taken out with his own hands a flint instru- 
ment from below a buried trunk of one of these pines. It 
appears clear that the same Scotch fir was afterwards sup- 
planted by the sessile variety of the common oak, of which 
many prostrate trunks occur in the peat at higher levels than 
the pines; and still higher the pedunculated variety of the 
same oak (Quercus robur, L.) occurs with the alder, birch 
(Betula verrucosa, Ehrh.), and hazel. The oak has in its turn 
been almost superseded in Denmark by the common beech. 
Other trees, such as the white birch (Betula alba), characterise 
the lower part of the bogs, and disappear from the higher ; 
while others again, like the aspen (Populus tremula), occur at 
all levels, and still flourish in Denmark. All the land and 
fresh-water shells, and all the mammalia as well as the plants, 
whose remains occur buried in the Danish peat, are of recent 
species. 

It has been stated that a stone implement was found under 
a buried Scotch fir at a great depth in the peat. By collecting 
and studying a vast variety of such implements, and other 
articles of human workmanship preserved in peat and in sand- 
dunes on the coast, as also in certain shell-mounds of the ab- 
origines presently to be described, the Danish and Swedish 
antiquaries and naturalists, M.M. Nilson, Steenstrup, Forch- 
hammer, Thomsen, Worsiiae, and others, have succeeded in 
establishing a chronological succession of periods, which they 
have called the ages of stone, of bronze, and of iron, named 
from the materials which have each in their turn served for 
the fabrication of implements. 

The age of stone in Denmark coincides with the period of 
the first vegetation, or that of the Scotch fir, and in part at 
least with the second vegetation, or that of the oak. But a 
considerable portion of the oak epoch coincided with ‘the age 
of bronze,’ for swords and shields of that metal, now in the 
Museum of Copenhagen, have been taken out of peat in which 


APPENDIX. 285 


oaks abound. The age of iron corresponded more nearly with 
that of the beech tree. 

M. Morlot, to whom we are indebted for a masterly sketch 
of the recent progress of this new line of research, followed up 
with so much success in Scandinavia and Switzerland, observes 
that the introduction of the first tools made of bronze among 
a people previously ignorant of the use of metals, implies a - 
great advance in the arts, for bronze is an alloy of about nine 
parts of copper and one of tin; and although the former metal, 
copper, is by no means rare, and is occasionally found pure, or 
in a native state, tin is not only scarce, but never occurs 
native. To detect the existence of this metal in its ore, then 
to disengage it from the matrix, and finally, after blending it 
in due proportion with copper, to cast the fused mixture in a 
mould, allowing time for it to acquire hardness by slow cool- 
ing, all this bespeaks no small sagacity and skilful manipula- 
tion. Accordingly, the pottery found associated with weapons 
of bronze is of a more ornamental and tasteful style than any 
which belongs to the age of stone. Some of the moulds in 
which the bronze instruments were cast, and ‘tags,’ as they 
are called, of bronze, which are formed in the hole through 
which the fused metal was poured, have been found. ‘The 
number and variety of objects belonging to the age of bronze 
indicates its long duration, as does the progress in the arts 
implied by the rudeness of the earlier tools, often mere repe- 
titions of those of the stone age, as contrasted with the more 
skilfully-worked weapons of a later stage of the same period. 

It has been suggested that an age of copper must always 
have intervened between that of stone and bronze; but if so, 
the interval seems to have been short in Europe, owing 
apparently to the territory occupied by the aboriginal inhabit- 
ants having been invaded and conquered by a people coming 
from the East, to whom the use of swords, spears, and other 
weapons of bronze, was familiar. Hatchets, however, of 
copper have been found in the Danish peat. 

The next stage of improvement, or that manifested by the 
substitution of iron for bronze, indicates another stride in the 
progress of the arts. Iron never presents itself, except in 
meteorites, in a native state, so that to recognise its ores, and 


286 CHAPTER V. 


then to separate the metal from its matrix, demands no small 
exercise of the powers of observation and invention. To 
fuse the ore requires an intense heat, not to be obtained with- 
out artificial appliances, such as pipes inflated by the human 
breath, or bellows, or some other suitable machinery. 


After reading this extract I could hardly help 
asking the question, Is it possible to explain the 
change of meaning in one word which meant fir and 
came to mean oak, and in another word which meant 
oak and came to mean beech, by the change of vege- 
tation which actually took place in those early ages ? 
Can we suppose that members of the Aryan family 
had settled in parts of Europe, that dialects of their 
common language were spoken in the south and in 
the north of this western peninsula of the primeval 
Asiatic Continent, at a time which Mr. Steenstrup 
estimates as at least 4,000 years ago? Sir Charles 
Lyell does not commit himself to such definite chro- 
nological calculations. 


What may be the antiquity (he writes) of the earliest human 
remains preserved in the Danish peat, cannot be estimated in 
centuries with any approach to accuracy. In the first place, 
in going back to the bronze age, we already find ourselves 
beyond the reach of history or even of tradition. In the time 
of the Romans, the Danish isles were covered, as now, with 
magnificent beech forests. Nowhere in the world does this 
tree flourish more luxuriantly than in Denmark, and eighteen 
centuries seem to have done little or nothing towards modify- 
ing the character of the forest vegetation. Yet in the ante- 
cedent bronze period there were no beech trees, or, at most, 
but a few stragglers, the country being covered with oak. 
In the age of stone, again, the Scotch fir prevailed, and already 
there were human inhabitants in those old pine forests. How 
many generations of each species of tree flourished in succes- 
sion before the pine was supplanted by the oak, and the oak 


APPENDIX. 287 


by the beech, can be but vaguely conjectured, but the minimum 
of time required for the formation of so much peat must, 
according to the estimate of Steenstrup and other good 
authorities, have amounted to at least 4,000 years; and there 
is nothing in the observed rate of the growth of peat opposed 
to the conclusion that the number of centuries may not have 
been four times as great, even though the signs of man’s exist- 
ence have not yet been traced down to the lowest or amorphous 
stratum. As to the ‘shell-mounds,’ they correspond in date to 
the older portion of the peaty record, or to the earliest part of 
the age of stone as known in Denmark. 

To suppose the presence in Europe of people speak- 
ing Aryan languages at so early a period in the history 
of the world, is opposed to the ordinarily received 
notions as to the advent of the Aryan race on the soil - 
of Europe. Yet if we ask ourselves, we shall have 
to confess that these notions themselves rest on no 
genuine evidence, nor is there for these early periods 
any available measure of time, except what may be 
read in the geological annals of the post-tertiary 
period. The presence of human life during the fir 
period or the stone age seems to be proved. The 
question, whether the races then living were Aryan 
or Turanian can be settled by language only. Skulls 
may help to determine the physical character, but they 
can in no way clear up our doubts as to the language 
of the earliest inhabitants of Europe. Now, if we find 
in the dialects of Aryan speech spoken in Europe, 
if we find in Greek, Latin, and German, changes of 
meaning running parallel with the changes of vege- 
tation just described, may we not admit, though as an 
hypothesis, and as an hypothesis only, that such 
changes of meaning were as the shadows cast on 
language by passing events. 


288 CHAPTER V. 


Let us look for analogies. A word like the German 
Buch, a book, being closely connected! with Buche, 
beech, is sufficient evidence to prove that German 
was spoken before parchment and paper superseded 
wooden tablets. If we knew the time when tablets 
made of beech wood ceased to be employed as a 
common writing material, that date would be a mint- 
mum date for the existence of that language in 
which a book is called book, and not either volumen, 
or liber, or biblos. 

Old words, we know, are constantly transferred to 
new things. Papirus took the meaning of paper, 
noon (nona hora) became the name for midday, 
édntw, to burn, was used in the sense of burying. 
People speak of an engine-driver, because they had 
before spoken of the driver of horses. They speak of 
a steel pen and a pen-holder, because they had before 
spoken of a pen, pennd. When hawks were sup- 
planted by fire-arms, the names of the birds of prey, 
formerly used in hawking, were transferred to the 
new weapons. The Italian mosquetto, the name of a 
sparrow-hawk, so called on account of its smallness, 
i.e. the little musca, or fly, became the name of the 
French mousquet, a musket. Faucon, hawk, was the 
name given to a heavier sort of artillery. Sacre in 

1 There are, no doubt, phonetic difficulties in connecting beech with 
book. But we have in A.S. béc in béc-tréow, beech-tree, and boc, fem. 
(plur. bée) book. The A.S. bée-stef is clearly the Germ. Buch-stabe. 
In Gothic béka in the singular is a letter, while the plural békés is a 
book. That the Germans wrote on wood is shown by Venantius Fortu- 
natus, Carm. vii. 18, 19, ‘ barbara fraxineis pingetur runa tabellis.’ 
The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary point out the difficulties, 


but suggest no other derivation. Kluge, Skeat, and others retain the 
old etymology. See, however, Paul, Grundriss, i. p. 241. 


APPENDIX. 289 


French and saker in English mean both hawk and 
gun; and the Italian terzeruolo, a small pistol, is 
closely connected with terzwolo, a hawk. The Eng- 
lish expression, ‘to let fly at a thing, suggests a 
similar explanation. In all these cases, if we knew 
the date when hawking went out and fire-arms came - 
in, we should be able to measure by that date the 
antiquity of the language in which fire-arms were 
called by names originally the names of hawks. 

The Mexicans called their own copper or bronze 
tepuctlt, which is said to have meant originally 
hatchet. The same word is now used for iron, with 
which the Mexicans first became acquainted through 
their intercourse with the Spaniards. Tepuztli then 
became a general name for metal, and when. copper 
had to be distinguished from iron, the former was 
called red, the latter black tepuztlr. The conclusion 
which we may draw from this, viz. that Mexican 
was spoken before the introduction of iron into 
Mexico, is one of no great value, because we know it 
from other sources. 

But let us apply the same line of reasoning to 
Greek. Here, too, chalkés, which at first meant 
copper,® came afterwards to mean metal in general, 
and chalkeus, originally a coppersmith, occurs in the 
Odyssey (ix. 391) in the sense of blacksmith, or a 
worker of iron (s¢dérews). What does this prove? 
It proves that Greek was spoken before the discovery 


* In Sanskrit, too, one name of iron, parasava, was derived from 


parasu, arches 
2 Anahuac; or, Mexico and the Mexicans, by E.B. Tylor, 1861, p. 140, 


* Gladstone, Homer and the Homeric Age, ili. p. 499, 
i; U 


290 CHAPTER V. 


of iron, and it shows that if we knew the exact date 
of that discovery, which certainly took place before 
the Homeric poems were finished, we should have in 
it a minimum date for the antiquity of the Greek 
language. Though the use of iron was known before 
the composition of the Homeric poems, it certainly 
was not known, as we shall see presently, previously 
to the breaking up of the Aryan family. Even in 
Greek poetry there is a distinct recollection of an 
age in which copper was the only metal used for 
weapons, armour, and tools. Hesiod! speaks of the 
third generation of men, ‘who had arms of copper, 
houses of copper, who ploughed with copper, and the 
black iron did not exist. In the Homeric poems, 
knives, spear-points, and armour were still made of 
copper, and we can hardly doubt that the ancients 
knew a process of hardening that pliant metal. 
The discovery of iron marks a period in the history 
of the world. Iron is not, like gold, silver, and 
copper, found in a pure state: the iron ore has to be 
searched for, and the process of extracting from it 
the pure metal is by no means easy.*? In New 
1 Op. et D. 150: 


Tots 3 Av yaAnea pev Tevyen, XaAKEor SE TE OlKoL, 
XaarKn@ & eipyaovro’ pédas & ovK Eoxe oidnpos. 
Cf. Lucretius, 5,1286. 

2 See J. P. Rossignol, membre de I’ Institut, Les Métaux dans V An- 
tiquité: Paris, 1863, pp. 215, 237. Proclus says, with regard to the 
passage in Hesiod, cal 7@ xadk@ mpds TovTO ExpHvTo, ws TH oLdHpw pds 
yewpylav, Sid Twos Bapns Tov xadKdv orepporoovvTes. In Strabo, xiii. 
p. 610, the process of making the alloy of copper and Wevddpyupos is de- 
scribed, and if Wevdapyupos is zinc, the result of its mixture with copper 
can only be brass. See Curtius, Grundziige der Griechischen Etymologie, 
p- 231, and St. John Vincent Day, Harly Use of Iron, p. 6. 

$ Rossignol, 1, c. p. 216. Buffon, Histoire naturelle, article du Fer, 
and article du Cuivre. Homer calls iron roAvepnrtos otdnpos. | 


APPENDIX. 291 


Zealand, where there is good iron ore, there was no 
knowledge of the working of iron ore previously to 
the arrival of Europeans." 

What makes it lkely that iron was not known 
previous to the separation of the Aryan nations is 
the fact that its names vary in every one of their 
languages. It is true that chalkés, too, in the sense 
of copper, occurs in Greek only, for it cannot be 
compared phonetically with Sanskrit hriku, which 
is said to mean tin. But there is another name for 
copper, which is shared in common by Latin and the 
Teutonic languages, ws, wris, Gothic azz,? Old High- 
German ér, and the adjective érin, Anglo-Saxon ¢r, 
English ore. Like chalkés, which originally meant 
copper, but came to mean metal in general, bronze 
or brass, the Latin ws, too, changed from the former 
to the latter meaning; and we can watch the same 
transition in the corresponding words of the Teu- 
tonic languages. dis, in fact, like Gothic azz, meant 
the one metal which, with the exception of gold and 
silver, was largely used of old for practical purposes. 
It meant copper whether in its pure state, or alloyed, 
as in later times, with tin (bronze) and zine (brass).” 
But neither ws in Latin nor azz in Gothic ever came 
to mean gold, silver, or iron. It is all the more 
curious, therefore, that the Sanskrit 4yas, which is 
the same word as es and aiz, should in Sanskrit 
have assumed the almost exclusive meaning of iron. 
I suspect, however, that in Sanskrit, too, ayas 


1 Tylor, Harly History of Mankind, p. 167. 
2 See Verner, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xxiii. p. 126. 
° Cf. Niebuhr, Rémische Geschichte, p. 259. 


U 2 


292 CHAPTER VY. 


meant originally the metal, i.e. copper, and that as 
iron took the place of copper, the meaning of 4yas 
was changed and specialised. In passages of the 
Atharva Veda (ix. 3, 1, 7), and the Vagasaneyi- 
sanhita (xvill. 13), a distinction is made between 
syamam ayas, dark-brown metal, and loham or 
lohitam ayas, bright metal, the former meaning 
copper, the latter iron.’ Flesh igs likened to dark 
metal (syamam ayas), blood to red metal (lohitam 
ayas). This shows that the exclusive meaning of 
ayas as iron was of later growth, and renders it 
more than probable that the Hindus, like the Romans 
and Germans, attached originally to 4yas (ws and 
aiz), the meaning of the metal par eacellence, i.e. 
copper. In Greek, dyas would have dwindled to és, 
and was replaced by chalkds ; while to distinguish the 
new from the old metals, iron was called by Homer 
sidéros. In Latin, different kinds of ws were dis- 
tinguished by adjectives, the best known being the 
ws Cyprium, brought from Cyprus,? while iron re- 
ceived the name of ferrum. In Gothic, aiz stands 
for Greek chalkds, but in Old High-German chuphar 
appears as a more special name, and ér assumes the 
meaning of bronze. This ér is lost in Modern Ger- 


* Lohitayas is given in Wilson’s Dictionary as meaning copper. 
If this were right, syAmam ayas would be iron. The commentator 
to the Vagasaneyi-sanhita is vague, but he gives copper as the first 
explanation of syaimam, iron as the first explanation of loham. 

* Cyprus was taken possession of by the Romans in 57 B.c. Herod was 
entrusted by Augustus with the direction of the Cyprian copper-mines, 
and received one-half of the profits. Pliny used es Cypriwm and Cy- 
prium by itself, for copper. The popular form, ewprum, copper, was 
first used by Spartianus in the third century, and became more frequent 
in the fourth. Rvssignol, I. c. pp. 268-9. 


APPENDIX. 293 


man,' except in the adjective chern, and a new word 
has been formed for metal in general, the Old High- 
German ar-wzi,? the modern German Erz. As ayas 
in Sanskrit assumed the special meaning of iron, we 
find that in German, too, the name for iron was 
derived from the older name of copper. The Gothic 
evsarn, iron, is considered by Grimm as a derivative 
form of azz, and the same scholar concludes from this 
that ‘in Germany bronze must have been in use before 
iron. * Hisarn is changed in Old High-German to 
tsarn, later to tsan, the Modern German eisen; while 
the Anglo-Saxon ésern leads to tren and iron. 

It may safely be concluded, I believe, that before 
the Aryan separation, gold, silver, and a third metal, 
1.@. Copper, in a more or less pure state, were known. 
Sanskrit, Greek, the Teutonic and Slavonic languages 
agree in their names for gold ;* Sanskrit, Greek, and 
Latin in their names for silver;® Sanskrit, Latin, and 
German in their names for the third metal. The 
names for iron, on the contrary, are different in each 


‘ It occurs as late as the fifteenth century. See Grimm, Deutsches 
Worterbuch, 8. v. erin, and s. v. Ez, 4, sub fine. 

* Grimm throws out a hint that ruzi in aruzi might be the Latin 
rudus, or raudus, rauderis, brass, but he qualifies the idea himself as 
bold. 

* See Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, where the first 
chapter is devoted to the consideration of the names of metals. The 
same subject has been treated by M. A. Pictet, in his Origines Indo- 
Européennes, vol. i. p. 149 seg. The learned author arrives at results 
very different from those stated above; but the evidence on which he 
relies, and particularly the supposed coincidences between comparatively 
late or purely hypothetical compounds in Sanskrit, and words in Greek 
and Latin, would require much fuller proofs than he has given. 

* Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, i. 172; ii. 314. 

> Curtius, U. ¢c, i. 141. 


294, CHAPTER V. 


of the principal branches of the Aryan family, the 
coincidences between the Celtic and Teutonic names 
being of a doubtful character. If, then, we consider 
that the Sanskrit ayas, which meant, originally, the 
same as Latin ws and Gothic aiz, came to mean iron ; 
that the German word for iron is derived from Gothic 
aiz, and that Greek chalkés, after meaning copper, was 
used as a general name for metal, and conveyed occa- 
sionally the meaning of iron, we may conclude, I 
believe, that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and German were 
spoken before the discovery of iron, that each nation 
became acquainted with that most useful of all metals 
after the Aryan family was broken up, and that each 
of the Aryan languages coined its name for iron from 
its own resources, and marked it by its own national 
stamp, while it brought the names for gold, silver, and 
copper from the common treasury of their ancestral 
home. | 

Let us now apply the same line of reasoning to 
the names of fir, oak, and beech, and their varying 
significations. The Aryan tribes, all speaking dialects 
of one and the same language, who came to settle in 
Europe during the fir period, or the stone age, would 
naturally have known the fir-tree only. They called 
it by the same name which still exists in English as 
fir, in German as fohre. How was it, then, that the 
same word, as used in the Lombard dialect, means 
oak, and that a second dialectic form exists in modern 
German, meaning oak, and not fir? We can well 
imagine that the name of the fir-tree should, during 
_ the fir period, have become the appellative for tree in 
general, just as chalkds, copper, became the appella- 


APPENDIX. 295 


tive for metal in general. But how could that name 
have been again individualised and attached to oak, 
unless the dialect to which it belonged had been living 
at a time when the fir vegetation was gradually re- 
placed by an oak vegetation? Although there is as 
little evidence of the Latin quercus having ever meant 
fir and not oak, as there is of the Gothic aiz having 
ever meant copper and not bronze, yet, if quercus 1s 
the same word as fir, I do not hesitate to postulate for 
it the pre-historic meaning of fir. That in some dia- 
lects the old name of fir should have retained its 
meaning, while in others it assumed that of oak, 1s in 
perfect harmony with what we observed before, viz. 
that ws retained its meaning in Latin, while ayas 
in Sanskrit assumed the sense of iron. 

The fact that phégés in Greek means oak,’ and oak 
only, while fagus in Latin, bék in Anglo-Saxon, mean 
beech, requires surely an explanation; and, until a 
better one can be given, I venture to suggest that 
Teutonic and Italic Aryans witnessed the transition of 
the oak period into the beech period, of the bronze age 
into the iron age, and that while the Greeks retained 
phéegés in its original sense, the Teutonic and Italian 
colonists transferred the name, as an appellative, to 
the new forests that were springing up in their wild 
homes. 

I am fully aware that many objections may be 


1 In Persian, too, b#k is said to mean oak. No authority, however, 
has ever been given for that meaning, and it is left out in the last edition 
of Johnson’s Dictionary and in Vullers’ Lexicon Persico-Latinum. 
Though the Persian b¢@k, in the sense of oak, would considerably 
strengthen our argument, it is necessary to wait until the word has 
been properly authenticated. 


296 CHAPTER V. 


urged against such an hypothesis. Migration from 
a fir-country into an oak-country, and from an oak- 
country into a beech-country, might be supposed to 
have caused these changes of meaning in the ancient 
Aryan words for fir and oak. I must leave it to the 
geologist and botanist to determine whether this is a 
more plausible explanation, and whether the changes 
of vegetation, as described above, took place in the 
same rotation over the whole of Europe, or in the 
North only. Again, the skulls found in the peat 
deposits are of the lowest type, and have been con- 
fidently ascribed to races of non-Aryan descent. In 
answer to this, I can only repeat my old protest, 
that the Science of Language has nothing to do with 
skulls.2 Lastly, the date thus assigned to the Aryan 
arrival in Europe will seem too far remote, particu- 
larly if it be considered that long before the first 
waves of the Aryan emigrants touched the shores of 
Europe, Turanian tribes, Fins, Laps, and Basks, must 
have roved through the forests of our continent. My 
answer is, that I feel the same difficulty myself, but 


* See M. M.’s Lectures on the Turanian Languages, p. 89 : ‘ Ethnology 
v. Phonology,’ 

* The same opinion has lately found a powerful supporter in Professor 
Huxley. I refer particularly to his paper ‘ On the Methods and Results 
of Ethnology,’ published in the Fortnightly Review, No. 3, June 15, 
1865; and his lecture on the ‘ Forefathers of the English People,’ pub- 
lished in Nature, March 17, 1870. 

‘If we confine our attention,’ he says, ‘to the British Islands, we 
have absolutely no means of ascribing any special physical characters 
to the Celtic-speaking people. A British or Irish “Celt” might be tall 
or short, dark or fair, round-headed or long-headed ; and the remark of 
Professor Max Miiller, that it is as rational to speak of a dolichocepha- 
lic language as of a Celtic skull, is, for the Celts of Britain, perfectly 
justified.’ 


APPENDIX. 297 


that I have always considered a full statement of 
a difficulty a necessary step towards its solution. I 
shall be as much pleased to see my hypothesis refuted 
as to see it confirmed. All that I request for it is an 
impartial examination.1 


* Some notes on the causes of the change of the vegetation in ancient 
Denmark, in G. P. Marsh, Man and Nature, p. 8, seq. 


298 CHAPTER VI. 


CHAPTER VI. 
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 


Guessing Etymology. 


OLTAIRE, as is well known, defined etymology 

ag a science in which vowels signify nothing at 

all, and consonants very little. ‘ L’étymologie,’ he said, 
‘est une science ow les voyelles ne font rien, et les con- 
sonnes fort pew de chose. Nor was this sarcasm quite 
undeserved by those who wrote on etymology in Vol- 
taire’s time, and we need not wonder that a man so 
reluctant to believe in any miracles, should have 
declined to believe in the miracles of etymology. Of 
course, not even Voltaire was so great a sceptic as 
to maintain that the words of our modern languages 
had no etymology, i.e. no origin, at all. Words do 
not spring into life by an act of spontaneous genera- 
tion, and the words of modern languages in particular 
are in many cases so much like the words of ancient 
languages that no doubt is possible as to their real 
origin and derivation. Wherever there was a certain 
similarity in sound and meaning between French 
words and words belonging to Latin, German, He- 
brew, or any other tongue, even Voltaire would have 
acquiesced. No one, for instance, could ever have 
doubted that the French word for God, Dieu, was 
the same as the Latin Deus; that the French 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 299 


homme and on came from Latin hominem and homo ; 
the French femme from the Latin femena. In these 
instances there had been no change of meaning, and 
the change of form, though the process by which. it 
took place remained unexplained, was not such as to 
startle even the sensitive conscience of Voltaire. There 
was indeed one department of etymology which had 
been cultivated with great success in Voltaire’s time, 
and even long before him, namely, the history of the 
Neo-Latin or Romanic dialects. We find in the 
dictionary of Du Cange a most valuable collection of 
extracts from medizval Latin writers, which enables 
us to trace, step by step, the gradual changes of form 
and meaning from ancient to modern Latin; and we 
have in the much ridiculed dictionary of Menage 
many an ingenious contribution towards tracing 
those mediseval Latin words in the earliest docu- 
ments of French literature, from the times of the 
Crusades to the Siécle of Louis XIV. Thus a mere 
reference to Montaigne, who wrote in the sixteenth 
century, is sufficient to prove that the modern French 
géner was originally gehenner. Montaigne writes: 
‘Je me suis contraint et gehenné, meaning, ‘I have 
forced and tortured myself’ This verb gehenner is 
easily traced back to the Latin gehenna,' used in the 
Greek of the New Testament and in the ecclesiastical 
writings of the middle ages not only in the sense of 
hell, but in the more general sense of suffering and 
pain. It is well known that Gehenna was originally 
the name of the valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem 
(2573), the Tophet, where the Jews burnt their sons 


1 Molitre says, ‘Je sens de son courroux des génes trop cruelles.’ 


300 CHAPTER VT. 


and their daughters in the fire, and of which Jere- 
miah prophesied that it should be called the valley of 
slaughter : for ‘They shall bury in Tophet till there 
be no place. How few persons think now of the 
sacrifices offered to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom 
when they ask their friends to make themselves com- 
fortable, and say, ‘Ne vous génez pas. 

It was well known not only to Voltaire, but even 
to Henri Estienne,? who wrote in the sixteenth 
century, that it is in Latin we may expect to find 
the original form and meaning of most of the words 
which fill the dictionaries of the French, Italian, 


1 Jeremiah vii. 31, 32. 

? Henri Estienne, Traicte de la Conformité du Langage Francois 
avec le Grec, 1566. What Estienne means by the conformité of French 
and Greek refers chiefly to syntactical peculiarities, common to both 
languages. ‘En une epistre Latine que je mi l’an passé audevant de 
quelques miens dialogues Grecs, ce propos m’eschappa, Quia multo 
majorem Gallica lingua cum Greca habet affinitatem quam Latina; et 
quidam tantum (absit invidia dicto) ut Gallos eo ipso quod nati sint 
Galli, maximum ad lingue Greece cognitionem mporépnua seu mAEovEK- 
Tha afferre putem.’ Estienne’s etymologies are mostly sensible and 
sober; those which are of a more doubtful character are marked as such 
by himself. It is not right, therefore, as is so often done, to class so great 
a scholar as H. Estienne together with Perion, and to charge him with 
having ignored the Latin origin of French. (See August Fuchs, Die 
Romanischen Sprachen, 1849, p.9.) What Estienne thought of Perion 
may be seen from the following extract (Zraicte de la Conformité, 
p- 139): ‘Il trouvera assez bo nombre de telles en un livre de nostre 
maistre Perion: je ne di pas seulemét de phantastiques, mais de sottes 
et ineptes, et si lourdes et asnieres que n’estoyent les autres temoignages 
que ce poure moine nous a laissez de sa lourderie et asnerie, on pour- 
roit penser son ceuvre estre supposée.’ LEstienne is wrongly charged 
with having derived admiral, French amiral, from dApvpds. He says 
it is Arabic, and so it is. It is the Arab Emir, prince, leader, possibly 
with the Arabic article. French amiral; Span. almirante; It. almi- 
raglio, as if from admirabilis. Hammer’s derivation from amir al bahr, 
commander of the sea, is untenable. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 301 


and Spanish languages. But these early etymolo- 
gists never knew of any test by which a true deriva- 
tion might be distinguished from a false one, except 
similarity of sound and meaning; and how far this 
similarity might be extended may be seen in such 
works as Perion’s Dialogi de Lingue Gallice Ori- 
gine (1557), or Guichard’s Harmonie Etymologique 
des Langues Hebraique, Chaldaique, Syriaque, Greque, 
Latine, Italienne, E'spagnole, Allemande, Flamende, 
Angloise (Paris, 1606). Perion derives brebis, sheep 
(the Italian berbice), from prdbaton, not from the Latin 
verve, like berger from berbicarius. Envoyer he de- 
rives from the Greek pémpein, not from the Latin 
enviare. Heureux he derives from the Greek owrios. 

Now, if we take the last instance, it is impossible 
to deny that there is a certain similarity of form 
and meaning between the Greek and French ; and as 
there can be no doubt that certain French words, 
such as parler, prétre, awmdne, were derived from 
Greek, it would have been very difficult to convince 
M. Perion that his derivation of hewreux was not quite 
as good as any other. ‘There is another etymology 
of the same word, according to which it is derived 
from the Latin hora. Bonheur is supposed to be bona 
hora; malheur, mala hora; and therefore hewreux is 
referred to a supposed Latin form, horosus, in the 
sense of fortunatus. This etymology, however, is no 
better than that of Perion. It is a guess, and no 
more, and it falls to the ground as soon as any of the 
more rigid tests of etymological science are applied 
to it. In this instance the test is very simple. There 
is, first of all, the gender of malheur and bonheur, 


302 CHAPTER VI. 


masculine instead of feminine.t Secondly, we find 
that malhewr was spelt in Old French mal aiir, which 
is malum augurium. Thirdly, we find in Provengal 
agur, augur, and from it the Spanish aguéro, an 
omen. <Augurium itself comes from avis, bird, 
and guwr, telling, gur being connected with garrire, 
garrulus, and the Sanskrit gar or gr%, to shout. 

We may form an idea of what etymological tests 
were in former times when we read in Guichard’s 
Harmonie Etymologique:’? ‘With regard to the 
derivations of words by means of the addition, sub- 
traction, transposition, and inversion of letters, it is 
certain that thir can and must be done, if we wish 
to find true etymologies. Nor is it difficult to believe 
this, if we consider that the Jews wrote from right to 
left, whereas the Greeks and the other nations, who 
derive their languages from Hebrew, write from left 
to right.’ Hence, he argues, there can be no harm 
in inverting letters or changing them to any amount. 
As long as etymology was carried on on such prin- 
ciples, it could not claim the name of a science. 
It was an amusement in which people might dis- 
play more or less of learning or ingenuity, but 1t 
was unworthy of its noble title, ‘The Science of 
Truth.’ 


: ‘ Appui de ma vieillesse, et comble de mon heur, 
Touche ces cheveux blancs a qui tu rends l’honneur.’ 
Cid. 

? «Quant a la dérivaison des mots par addition, substraction, trans- 
position, et inversion des lettres, il est certain que cela se peut et doit 
ainsi faire, si on veut trouver les étymologies. Ce qui n’est point 
difficile & croire, si nous considérons que les Hébreux escrivent de la 
droite & la senestre, et les Grecs et autres de la senestre & la droite.’ 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 303 


Sound Etymology independent of Sound. 


It is only in the present century that etymology 
has taken its rank as a science, and it is curious to 
observe that what Voltaire intended as a sarcasm 
has now become one of its acknowledged principles. 
Etymology is indeed a science in which identity, or 
even similarity, whether of sound or meaning, is of 
no importance whatever. Sound etymology has no- 
thing to do with sound. We know words to be of 
the same origin which have not a single letter in 
common, and which differ in meaning as much as 
black and white. Mere guesses, however plausible, 
are completely discarded from the province of scien- 
tific etymology. What etymology professes to teach 
is no longer merely that one word is derived from 
another; but how to prove, step by step, that one 
word was regularly and necessarily changed into 
another. As in geometry it is of very little use to 
know that the squares of the two sides of a rectangular 
triangle are equal to the square of the hypotenuse, it 
is of little value in etymology to know, for instance, 
that the French /arme is the same word as the English 
tear. Geometry professes to teach the process by 
which to prove that which seems at first sight so 
incredible ; and etymology professes to do the same. 
A derivation, even though it be true, is of no real 
value if it cannot be proved—a case which happens 
not unfrequently, particularly with regard to ancient 
languages, where we must often rest satisfied with 
refuting fanciful etymologies, without being able to 
give anything better in their place. It requires, no 


304 CHAPTER VI. 


doubt, an effort before we can completely free our- 
selves from the idea that etymology must chiefly 
depend on similarity of sound and meaning; and 
in order to dispose of this prejudice effectually, 
it may be useful to examine this subject in full 
detail. 

If we wish to establish our thesis that sound ety- 
mology has nothing to do with sound, we must prove 
four points :— 


1. That the same word takes different forms in 
different languages. 

2. That the same word takes different forms in one 
and the same language. 

3. That different words take the same forme in dif- 
ferent languages. 

4. That different words take the same form in one 
and the same language. 


Usefulness of Modern Languages, 


In order to establish these four points, we should 
at first confine our attention to the history of modern 
languages, or, as we should say more correctly, to the 
modern history of language. The importance of the 
modern languages for a true insight into the nature of 
language, and for a true appreciation of the principles 
which govern the growth of ancient languages, has 
never been sufficiently appreciated. Because a study 
of the ancient languages has always been confined to 
a small minority, and because it is generally supposed 
that it is easier to learn a modern than an ancient 
tongue, people have become accustomed to look upon 
the so-called classical languages—Sanskrit, Greek, and 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 305 


Latin—as vehicles of thought more pure and perfect 
than the spoken or so-called vulgar dialects of Europe. 
We are not speaking at present of the literature of 
Greece or Rome or ancient India, as compared with 
the literature of England, France, Germany, and Italy. 
We speak only of language, of the roots and words, 
the declensions, conjugations, and constructions pecu- 
liar to each dialect ; and with regard to these, it must 
be admitted that the modern stand on a perfect 
equality with the ancient languages. Can it be sup- 
posed that we, who are always advancing in art, in 
science, in philosophy, and religion, should have 
allowed language, the most powerful instrument of 
the mind, to fall from its pristine purity, to lose its 
vigour and nobility, and to become a mere Jargon? 
Language, though it changes continually, does by no 
means continually decay; or at all events, what we 
are wont to call decay and corruption in the history 
of language is in truth nothing but the necessary con- 
dition of its life. Before the tribunal of the Science of 
Language, the difference between ancient and modern 
languages vanishes. As in botany aged trees are not 
placed in a different class from young trees, 1t would 
be against all the principles of scientific classification 
to distinguish between old and young languages. We 
must study the tree as a whole, from the time when 
the seed is placed in the soil to the time when it bears 
fruit; and we must study language in the same 
manner as a whole, tracing its life uninterruptedly 
from the simplest roots to the most complex deriva- 
tives. He who can see in modern languages nothing 
but corruption or anomaly, understands but little of 
II. 2 


306 CHAPTER VI. 


the true nature of language. If the ancient languages 
throw light on the origin of the modern dialects, many 
secrets in the nature of the dead languages can only 
be explained by the evidence of the living dialects. 
Apart from all other considerations, modern languages 
help us to establish, by evidence which cannot be 
questioned, the leading principles of the science of 
language. They are to the student of language what 
the tertiary, or even more recent, formations are to 
the geologist. The works of Diez, his ‘ Comparative 
Grammar of the Romanic Languages’ and his ‘ Lexi- 
con Comparativum Linguarum Romanarum’ are as 
valuable in every respect as the labours of Bopp, 
Grimm, Zeuss, and Miklosich; nay, they seem to me 
to form the best introduction to the study of the more 
ancient periods of Aryan speech. Many points which, 
with regard to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, can only 
be proved by inductive reasoning, can here be settled 
by historical evidence. 

In the modern Romanic dialects we have before 
our eyes a more complete and distinct picture or 
repetition of the origin and growth of language than 
anywhere else in the whole history of human speech. 
We can watch the Latin from the time of the first 
Scipionic inscription (283 B.c.) to the time when we 
meet with the first traces of Neo-Latin speech in 
Italy, Spain, and France. We can then follow for a 
thousand years the later history of modern Latin, 
in its six distinct dialects, all possessing a rich and 
well-authenticated literature. If certain forms of 
grammar are doubtful in French, they receive light — 
from the collateral evidence which is to be found in 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 307 


Italian or Spanish. If the origin of a word is obscure 
in Italian, we have only to look to French and 
Spanish, and we shall generally receive some useful 
hints to guide us in our researches. Where, except 
in these modern dialects, can we expect to find a 
perfectly certain standard by which to measure the 
possible changes which words may undergo both in 
form and meaning without losing their identity ? 
We can here silence all objections by facts, and we 
can force conviction by tracing, step by step, every 
change of sound and sense from Latin to French ; 
whereas when we have to deal with Greek and Latin 
and Sanskrit, we can only use the soft pressure of 
inductive reasoning. 


Change of Form. 


If we wish to prove that the Latin coquo is closely 
related to the Greek pép-td, I cook, we have to 
establish the fact that the guttural (velar) and labial 
tenues, k and p, are interchangeable in Greek and 
Latin. No doubt there is sufficient evidence in the 
ancient languages to prove this. Few would deny 
the identity of pente and quinque, and if they did, 
a reference to the Oscan dialect of Italy, where five is 
not quinque but pomtis, would suffice to show that 
the two forms differed from each other by dialectic 
pronunciation only. Yet it strengthens the hands of 
the etymologist considerably if he can point to living 
languages and trace in these exactly the same pho- 
netic influences. Thus the Gaelic dialect shows the 
guttural where the Welsh shows the labial tenuis. 
Five in Irish is cotc, in Welsh pimp. Four in Irish 

X 2 


308 CHAPTER VI. 


is cethir, in Welsh petwar. Again, in Roumanian, a 
Latin qu followed by a appears as p. Thus, aqua in 
Roumanian is apd; equa épa; quatuor patru. It is 
easier to prove that the French méme is the Latin 
semetipsissimus, than to convince the incredulous 
that the Latin séd is a reflective pronoun, and meant 
originally by itself. 

Where, again,~except in the modern languages, 
can we watch the secret growth of new forms, and 
thus learn to understand the resources for the for- 
mation of the grammatical articulation of language ? 
Everything that is now merely formal in the gram- 
matical system of French can easily be proved to 
have been originally substantial; and after we have 
once become fully impressed with this fact, we 
shall feel less reluctance in acknowledging the same 
principle with regard to the grammatical system of 
more ancient languages. If we have learnt how the 
French future yaimerai is a compound tense, con- 
sisting of the infinitive and the auxiliary verb, avoir, 
to have, we shall be more ready to admit a similar 
explanation for the Latin future in bo, and the Greek 
future in sé. Modern dialects may be said to let out 
the secrets of language. They often surprise us by 
the wonderful simplicity of the means by which the 
whole structure of language is erected, and they 
frequently repeat in their new formations the exact 
process which had given rise to more ancient forms. 
There can be no doubt, for instance, about the 
Modern German entzwei. Entzweireissen does not 
mean only to tear into two parts, but it assumes the 
more general sense of to tear in pieces. In English, 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 309 


too, a servant will say that a thing has come a-two, 
though he broke it into many pieces. Hntzwei, in 
fact, answers exactly the same purpose as the Latin 
dis in dissolvo, disturbo, distraho. And what is the 
original meaning of this dis? Exactly the same as 
the German entzwe2, the Low-German twer. In Low- 
German mine Schaw sint twei means my shoes are 
torn. The numeral duo, with the adverbial termina- 
tion 7s, is liable to the following changes :—Du-is 
may become dvis, and dvis dbis. In dbis either the d 
or the b must be dropt, thus leaving either dis or 
bis. Bis in Latin is used in the sense of twice, dis 
in the sense of a-two. The same process leads from 
duellum, Zweikampf, duel, to dvellum, dbellum, and 
bellum, and from Greek dyis to df is and dis (twice). 


Change of Meaning. 


And what applies to the form, applies to the mean- 
ing of words. What should we say if we were told 
that a word which means good in Sanskrit meant 
bad in Greek? Yet we have only to trace the 
Modern German schlecht back through a few centuries 
before we find that the same word which now means 
bad was then used in the sense of good, and we are 
enabled to perceive, by a reference to intermediate 
writers, that this transition was by no means so 
violent as it seems to be. Schlecht meant right and 
straight, but it also meant simple; simple came to 
mean foolish; foolish, useless; useless, bad. Hkelhaft 


1 ¢ Er (Got) enwil niht tuon wanslehtes:’ ‘God will do nothing but 
what is good.’ Fridank’s Bescheidenheit, in M. M.’s German Classics, 
p. 121. 


310 CHAPTER VI. 


is used by Leibniz in the sense of fastidious, deli- 
cate ;' it now means only what causes disgust. In- 
genvum, which meant an inborn faculty, is degraded 
into the Italian ~ngannare, which means to cheat. 
Raisonniren meant originally to reason; but its or- 
dinary acceptation in German now is to grumble, to 
talk at random. Sélig or gesélig, which in Anglo- 
Saxon meant blessed, beatus, appears in English as 
silly, and the same ill-natured change may be ob- 
served in the Greek ewéthés, guileless, mild, silly, and 
in the German albern, stupid, the Old High-German 

alawdr, verissimus, alawdri, benignus. The German 
adverb schon, already, was originally the same word 
as schon, beautiful; fast, almost, was fest, firm ; zwar, 
though, was ze wdre, in truth. 

Thus, a word which originally meant life or time 
in Sanskrit, has given rise to a number of words 
expressing eternity, the very opposite of life and 
time. ver and never in English are derived from 
the same source from which we have age. Age is 
of course the French dge. This dge was in Old 
French edage, changed into eage and dge. Edage, 
again, represents a Latin form, wtaticwm, which was 
had recourse to after the original wtas had dwindled 
away into a mere vowel, the Old French aé Now 
the Latin wtas is a contraction of wvitas, as wternus 
is a contraction of aviternus (ef. sempiternus). 
Aivum, again, corresponds by its radical, though not 
by its derivative elements, to Greek aifon and the 
Gothic aiw-s, time and eternity. In Sanskrit we 
meet with ay-us, a neuter, which, if literally trans- 


* Not mentioned in Grimm’s Dictionary. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY, oll 


lated into Greek, would give us a Greek form «os, 
and an adjective, aizs, neut. aiés. Now, although 
atos did not survive in the actual language of Greece, 
its derivatives exist, the adverbs aiés and aiet. This 
aie is a regular dative (or rather locative) of avés, 
which would form aiesi, aiei, like génesi and génev. 
In Gothic, we have from aiws, time, the adverbs aw, 
ever, the Modern German je; and ni aiw, never, the 
Modern German vie. 

We find in this class of words the best confirmation 
of a remark made by Locke and by others before 
him, that all words expressive of immaterial ideas are 
derived from words expressive of material subjects, 
by which, as he adds, ‘we may give some kind of 
guess what kind of notions they were, and whence 
derived, which filled their minds who were the first 
beginners of language. We can, however, go a step 
beyond Locke, and substitute roots for words. Thus, 
if the ancient framers of our language possessed a 
root PLAK, for platting, or VABH, for weavang, they 
might derive from them not only the name of the 
spider, but likewise of the poet who weaves words 
and thoughts together. Thus we have from VABH 
in Sanskrit tirna-vabhi, spider, lit. wool-weaver. 
In Greek we have tos, web, but also ty-vos (for 
i-vos), poem, while Greek expressions such as d0Aovs 
kal pari, pwOovs Kal pydea, olkodounpara, GABor, and Knpov 
iatverv, show how many branches may spring in 
later times from one common stem. The root VABH, 
however, like VAP, before they came to mean more 
exclusively to weave, meant to throw, and also to 
sow. In an intransitive sense even our modern verb 


312 CHAPTER VI. 


to wabble, has been traced back by Professor Pott 
to this root, though according to Mr. Wedgwood it is, 
of course, a clear case of onomatopceia. 


History of Words. 


There is a peculiar charm in watching the various 
changes of form and meaning in words passing down 
from the Ganges or the Tiber into the great ocean of 
modern speech. In the eighth century B.c. the Latin 
dialect was confined to a small territory. It was but 
one dialect out of many that were spoken all over 
Italy. But it grew—it became the language of 
Rome and of the Romans, it absorbed all the other 
dialects of Italy, the Umbrian, the Oscan, the Etrus- 
can, the Celtic, and became by conquest the language 
of Central Italy, of Southern and Northern Italy. 
From thence it spread to Gaul, to Spain, to Germany, 
to Dacia on the Danube. It became the language 
of law and government in the civilised portions of 
Northern Africa and Asia, and it was carried through 
the heralds of Christianity to the most distant parts 
of the globe. It supplanted in its victorious progress 
the ancient vernaculars of Gaul, Spain, and Portugal, 
and it.struck deep roots in parts of Switzerland and 
Walachia. When it came in contact with the more 
vigorous idioms of the Teutonic tribes, though it 
could not supplant or annihilate them, it left on their 
surface a thick layer of foreign words, and it thus 
supplied the greater portion in the dictionary of 
nearly all the civilised nations of the world. Words 
which were first used by Italian shepherds are now 
used by the statesmen of England, the poets of 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 313 


France, the philosophers of Germany; and the faint 
echo of their pastoral conversation may be heard in 
the senate of Washington, in the cathedral of Calcutta, 
and in the colonies of Australia. . 
I shall trace the career of a few of those early 
Roman words, in order to show how words may 
change, and how they adapt themselves to the changing 
wants of each generation. I begin with the word 
Palace. A palace now is the abode of a royal family. 
But if we look at the history of the name we are soon 
carried back to the shepherds of the Seven Hills. 
There, on the Tiber, one of the Seven Hills was ealled 
the Collis Palatinus, and the hill was called Palatinus, 
from Pales, a pastoral deity, whose festival was cele- 
brated every year on the 21st of April as the birth- 
day of Rome. It was to commemorate the day on 
which Romulus, the wolf-child, was supposed to have 
drawn the first furrow on the foot of that hill, and 
thus to have laid the foundation of the most ancient 
part of Rome, the Roma Quadrata. On this hill, the 
Collis Palatinus, stood in later times the houses of 
Cicero and of his neighbour and enemy Catiline. 
Augustus built his mansion on the same hill, and his 
example was followed by Tiberius and Nero. Under 
Nero, all private houses had to be pulled down on the 
Collis Palatinus, in order to make room for the em- 
peror’s residence, the Domus Aurea, as it was called, 
the Golden House. This house of Nero’s was hence- 
forth called the Palatiwm, and it became the type of 
all the palaces of the kings and emperors of Europe. 
The Latin palatewm has had another very strange 
offspring—the French le palais, in the sense of palate. 


314 CHAPTER VI. 


Before the establishment of phonetic rules to regulate 
the possible changes of letters in various languages, no 
one would have doubted that le palais, the palate, was 
the Latin palatum. However, palatum could never 
have become palais, but only palé. How palatium 
was used instead is difficult to explain. It was a 
word of frequent use, and with it was associated the 
idea of vault (palacs vouti). Now vault was a very 
appropriate name for the palate. In Italian the palate 
is called 7d cielo della bocca ; in Greek ourands, oura- 
niskos, in Sanskrit mirdhan. Ennius, again, speaks 
of the vault of heaven as palatum celi. There was 
evidently a similarity of conception between palate 
and vault, and vault and palace; and hence palatiwm 
was evidently in vulgar Latin used by mistake for 
palatum, and thus carried on into French.! 

Another modern word, the English cowrt, the 
French cowr, the Italian corte, carries us back to the 
same locality and to the same distant past. It was on 
the hills of Latium that cohors or cors was first used 
in the sense of a hurdle, an enclosure, a cattle-yard.? 
The cohortes, or divisions of the Roman army, were 
called by the same name; so many soldiers consti- 
tuting a pen or a court. It is generally supposed 
that cors is restricted in Latin to the sense of cattle- 
yard, and that cohors is always used in a military 
sense. This is not so. Ovid (Fasti, iv. 704) used 
cohors in the sense of cattle-yard : 

Abstulerat multas illa cohortis aves ; 

* See Diez, Lexicon Comp. s. v. 


* Town, too, is originally a hedge, the German Zaun. In Scotland 
town still means a farmhouse, a hamlet. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 315 


and on inscriptions corvs has been found in the sense 
of cohors. The difference between the two words was 
a difference of pronunciation merely. As nihil and 
nil, mihi and mi, nehemo and nemo, prehendo and 
prendo, so cohors, in the language of Italian peasants, 
glided into cors. 

This cors, cortis, from meaning a pen, a cattle-yard, 
became in medieval Latin curtis, and was used, like 
the German Hof, of the farms and castles built by 
Roman settlers in the provinces of the empire. These 
farms became the centres of villages and towns, and in 
the modern names of Vraucourt, Graincourt, Lien- 
court, Magnicourt, Aubignicourt, the older names of 
Vari curtis, Grani curtis, Leonit curtis, Manit 
curtis, Albinz cwrtis, have been discovered.! 

Lastly, from meaning a fortified place, curtis rose 
to the dignity of a royal residence, and became syno- 
nymous with palace. The two names having started 
from the same place, met again at the end of their 
long career. 

Now, if we were told that a word which in Sanskrit 
means cow-pen had assumed in Greek the meaning of 
palace, and had given rise to derivatives such as 
courteous (civil, refined), courtesy (a graceful inclina- 
tion of the body, expressive of respect), to cowrt (to 
pay attentions, or to propose marriage), many people 
would be incredulous. It is therefore of the greatest 
use to see with our own eyes how, in modern lan- 
guages, words are worn down, in order to feel less 


1 Mannier, Etudes sur les Noms des Villes: Paris, 1861, p. xxvi. 
Houzé, Etude sur la Signification des Noms de Liewx en France : 
Paris, 1864. 


316 CHAPTER VI. 


sceptical as to a similar process of attrition in the 
history of the more ancient languages of the world. 
While names such as palace and court, and many 
others, point back to an early pastoral state of society, 
and could have arisen only among shepherds and hus- 
bandmen, there are other words which we still use, 
and which originally could have arisen only in a sea- 
faring community. Thus government, or to govern, 
is derived from the Latin gubernare. This gubernare 
is a foreign word in Latin; that is to say, it was 
borrowed by the Romans from the Greeks, who at a 
very early time had sailed westward, discovered Italy, 
_and founded colonies there, just as in later times the 
nations of Europe sailed further west, discovered 
America, and planted new colonies there. The Greek 
word which in Italy was changed into gubernare was 
kuberndn, and it meant originally to handle the 
rudder, or to steer. It was then transferred to the 
person or persons entrusted with the direction of 
public affairs, and at last came to mean to rule. 


Titles. 


Minister meant, etymologically, a small man; and 
it was used in opposition to magister, a big man. 
Minster is connected with minus, less; magister with 
magis, more. Hence minister, a servant, a servant 
of the Crown, a minister. From minister came the 
Latin ministeriwm, service; in French contracted 
into métier, a profession. A minstrel was originally 
a professional artist, and more particularly a singer 
or poet. Even in the Mystery Plays, the theatrical 
representations of portions of the Old or New Testa- 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. S17 


ment story, such as still continue to be performed 
at Ammergau in Bavaria, mystery is a corruption 
of ministerium; it meant a religious ministry or 
service, and had nothing to do with mystery. It 
ought to be spelt with an 7, therefore, and not with 
ay. 

There is a background to almost every word which 
we are using; only it is darkened by age, and re- 
quires to be lighted up. Thus ord, which in modern 
English has become synonymous with nobleman, is in 
Anglo-Saxon hldéf-ord, which was supposed by some 
to mean ord, the origin, of hldf, loaf; while others, 
more correctly, look upon it as a corruption of hld/- 
weard, the warder of bread.’ It corresponds to the 
German Brot-herr, and meant originally employer, 
master, lord. Lappenberg was, I believe, the first 
to point out in his History of England that Karl 
(A.S. corl), the Danish Jarl, might be a contraction of 
ald-or, a senior or elder, by the side of zeldra, older. 
The phonetic changes are not quite regular, yet they 
receive some support from analogy. Thus 7/ is 
clearly a representative of //, in Hrle, alnus, for ler 
(O.H.G. elira and erila); and U represents an original 
ld in Eller-mutter for Elder-mutter, or in A.S. ellern 
from eldyr, elder-tree. In Welsh also el/ir stands 


1 See Grimm, Deutsches Worterbuch, s.v. ‘ Brotherr,’ and ‘ Brotling,’ 
servant. Grimm, in his Rechtsalterthiimer, p. 280, note, says: ‘ Lord, 
lady, are in A.S. hlaford, hlifdie, hlafdige. If we derive them from 
hldf (loaf), they should be written with @ and @; but I do not consider 
this derivation certain. We ought to consider the Old Norse lafavardr 
(not hleifvardr, leifeardr). Vilk. cap. 86, p. 159; Biorn derives lévardr 
from lav, collegium. The West Gothic Law, rettl. 13, has davard for 
master as opposed to servant.’ 


318 CHAPTER VI. 


for eldir. Still, it does not follow that phonetic 
changes real in one language are possible in another, 
and we must wait for further confirmation.! 

In Latin, elder would be senior, and this (in the 
form of seniorem) became changed into seigneur, 
sieur, while senior dwindled down to sir.2 Duke 
meant originally a leader; cownt, the Latin comes, 
a companion; baron, the medieval Latin bavo, 
meant man; and knight, the German Knecht, was 
a servant. Hach of these words has risen in rank, 
but they have kept the same distance from each 
other. 

As families rose into clans, clans into tribes, tribes 
into confederacies, confederacies into nations, the 
elders of each family naturally formed themselves 
into a senate, senatus meaning a collection of elders. 
The elders were also called the grey-headed, or the 
Greys, the wéAvo. among the Macedonians.? It is 
possible, though no more, that gravio, the German 
Graf, may be a somewhat irregular representative 

* See Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, ii. p. 141. ‘Ealdor or aldor, 
in Anglo-Saxon, denotes princely dignity, without any definition of 
function whatever. In Béowulf it is used as a synonym for cyning, 
feoden, and other words applied to royal personages. Like many other 
titles of rank in the various Teutonic tongues, it is derived from an 
adjective implying age, though practically this idea does not by any 
means survive in it, any more than it does in the word senior, the 
origin of the feudal term Seigneur. The Roman senatus, the Greek 
<povaia, the ecclesiastical mpeoBurepo., are all examples of a like usage.’ 
—Kemble, Sazons, ii. p. 128. That the etymological meaning, how- 
ever, was never quite forgotten, we see from such passages as Bede, 
li. 13 seq., where ‘natu majores ac regis conciliarii’ is translated by 
ealdormen and fis cyningas peahteras. : 

* Sere and stiri occur as early as 1127. See Trinchera, Syllab. Memb. 
Grec. p. 134: cépe dredvSpov, 

° Strabo, Fragm. vii. 2. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 319 


of Der Graue. Ever so many etymologies have been 
suggested of this title; not one that is on all points 
satisfactory.! All I can say in defence of identifying 


1 The following are some of the more important etymologies of graf. 
Grimm, in his Rechtsalterthiimer, writes: ‘I shall venture a new guess. 
Rdvo was in Old High-German tignum, tectum, perhaps also domus, 
aula; gardvjo, girdrjo, girdvo, would signify comes, socius, like gistallo, 
and gisaljo, gisello. This full form may perhaps be traced in old docu- 
ments. It is supported by the Anglo-Saxon geréfa, which in the sense 
of socius, comes, presul, tribunus, corresponds completely with the 
Frankish grafio, and becomes in English reeve, rif; so that the 
abbreviated form sherif is to be explained as scire-geréfa. The 
difficulty that the A.S. word does not sound gerefa (cf. refter, 
tignum, a rafter), I know not how to meet, except by the hypothesis 
that the Anglo-Saxons, too, borrowed the name and the dignity from 
the Franks, and therefore disfigured the vowel. We see from the lex 
35 Edovardi Confess. (Canc. 4, 841a) that greve was foreign to the 
genuine Anglo-Saxon law.’ 

The difficulties of this etymology are considerable. In 0.H.G. rdvo 
means a beam, not a house. If it meant ‘a house,’ then girdzvjo might 
have been derived from it in the sense of companion. This word 
girdvjo, however, does not exist in O.H.G.; it is merely formed in 
analogy with gisaljo (giselljo), Geselle, i.e. sharing the same sal or 
house, and on the supposition that rdvo, a rafter, may also have meant 
a house. Now if we consult historical documents, we find that in the 
earliest specimens of Old High-German, in the Vocabularius St. Galli 
(7th cent.), preses is rendered, not by giravjo, but by graue. In the 
Vocabularius Optimus (ed. Wackernayel, 1847, p. 38), i.e. in the 14th 
century, comes is still explained by Grawe, comitissa by Grafinna. 
How then and at what time could giravjo have been changed into 
graue? 

Secondly : if we try to apply the same etymology to the Anglo-Saxon 
geréfa, we find that it refuses to be derived from O.H.G. rdvo, beam, 
which exists in A.S. in the form of r@f-ter, rafter. According to this 
etymology the A.S. word would have been gerefa, not geréfa. Grimm, 
in order to meet this difficulty, is driven to consider geréfa as a foreign 
word in A.S., and he tries to show, but without success (see Schmidt, 
Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, p. 597), that both the name and the 
dignity of geréfa were simply taken over from the Franks. If the 
original form of Graf had been giravjo, how could it be explained that 
neither in German nor in Latin documents do we ever meet with the 
initial syllable ge or gi, but always with gr? ‘There is one passage only 


320 CHAPTER VI. 


Gravio with O.H.G. gréo, gen. grdwes, is that the 
German word grdo may have passed through a 
Romanic channel. In this case grdo would have 


where Waitz found garajio (see Leo Meyer, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v. 
p. 157). 

Kemble, in his Saxons in England, ii. p. 151, proposed another ety- 
mology: 

‘The exact meaning and etymology of geréfa,’ he writes, ‘ have 
hitherto eluded the researches of our best scholars, and yet, perhaps, 
few words have been more zealously investigated ; if I add another to 
the number of attempts to solve the riddle, it is only because I believe 
the force of the word will become much more evident when we have 
settled its genuine derivation; and that philology has yet a part to 
play in history which has not been duly recognised. ... I am naturally 
very diffident of my own opinion in a case of so much obscurity, and 
where many profound thinkers have failed of success; still it seems to 
me that geréfa may possibly be referable to the word réfan or réfan, to 
call aloud; if this be so, the names denote bannitor, the summoning 
or proclaiming officer, him by whose summons or proclamation the 
court and the levy of the foremen were called together; and this 
suggestion answers more nearly than any other to the nature of the 
original office. In this sense, too, a reeve’s district is called his mdénung 
bannum.’ 

Richthofen, in his Altfriesisches Wérterbuch, after rejecting the ety- 
mologies of Grimm, Spelman, Lappenberg, and others, takes up the 
defence of an old derivation of Graf from ypa¢ew, which Kemble had 
consigned ‘to the storehouse of blunders.’ ‘ Nothing remains,’ says 
Richthofen, ‘but to return to the opinion so common in old books, that 
the word is borrowed from the Greek ypagevs, a writer.’ He points to 
the French greffier, i. e. graphiarius, and he thinks that the word was 
introduced by the Franks into Germany, and from Germany imported 
into the Northern countries. 

The chief objection to Richthofen’s derivation is the fact that, 
according to Savigny’s researches, the office of Graf was an old German 
office, and could not have had originally a Greek or Latin name. 
‘ Whatever its etymology,’ says Waitz, no mean authority, ‘ the name 
of Graf is certainly German.’ 

Prof, Leo Meyer (in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v. 155) called attention to, 
the Gothic ga-gré/ti in the sense of command, as supplying an etymology 
of the O.H.G. grdvo, and he derived gagréfti from the Sanskrit root 
- kalp or klip. But this would be in defiance of Grimm’s law, which 
requires a Sanskrit aspirate in place of the Gothic media. Kluge 
adopts a similar view. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 321 


become gravo, just as O.H.G. bldo, gen. bldwes became 
in medieval Latin *blavo and blavus. With the 
Latin termination zo, we should then have Gravio.} 

Over such a senate the German nations at an early 
time placed a king. In Latin the king is called rem, 
the Sanskrit rag (rit) and rAgan, in Mahdraga; 
and this rea, the French roi, meant. originally steers- 
man, from regere, to steer.” 

The Teutonic nations, however, used a different word, 
namely Konig or King, and this corresponds to the 
Sanskrit ganaka, father. If we confined our attention 
to the Teutonic languages only, we should feel inclined 
to look upon A.S. cyning and cyng as derivatives of 
cynn, kin, yévos, in the sense of belonging to a family. 
But there is a great difference between a man belong- 
ing to a noble family, ex nobilitate ortus, a yevvaios 
or gentilis, and a king. A king was not simply a 
nobleman among noblemen ; it was his distinguishing 
character that he stood above them and aloof of them. 
Besides, we cannot well separate the German words, 
O.H.G. chuninc, Old Norse konungr, from Sanskrit 
ganaka, king, nor can we neglect the name for 
queen, as throwing light on the name for king. No 
one doubts that queen, the A.S. cwén, is the Sanskrit 
gani, and no one doubts that gani and g4ni meant 

* In this form the word is found in the Charta Chlodovei III apud 
Mabillonium, tom. III. SS. Ord. 8. Benedicti, p. 617 (see Du Cange, 
s. v.); also in Paulus Warnefridus, lib. v.,‘ De Gestis Langob.,’ cap. 36. 
Grafjio, graffio, graphio are only modifications of the same word, all 
authenticated by passages from medizval charters and books (see Du 
Cange, 8. v.). 

* Though in Sanskrit ragan seems to be derived from rag, to be 


brilliant, it is really derived from the root arg, from which rig u, 
straight, andragishtha, straightest. 


IT. Y 


322 CHAPTER VI. 


woman and wife, because they originally meant 
genetviz, mother. If then the queen was originally 
called mother, what could the king have been called, 
if not father? In Sanskrit the transition of meaning 
is clear. Ganaka meant procreator, parent, then 
king (PAn. vii. 8, 35, schol.). The feminine ganaki, 
in the sense of mother and queen, does not exist 
in Sanskrit, but it has been traced in the Greek 
genitive yuvaik-ds from yur) (see Curtius, in Kuhn’s 
Zeitschrift, iv. 216). 

The difficulties of deriving chunine or kwning trom 
kwni (genus), O.H.G. chunni, Old Norse kyn, were 
pointed out by Grimm (Rechtsalterthiimer, p. 230). 
From kyn, he says, kyningr only could have been 
formed, not kondingr. Richthofen, in his Altfrieszsches 
_ Worterbuch, p. 870, brings further evidence to show 
that this derivation is impossible. Grimm, however, 
thought that the German names for king might be 
derived from a word preserved in Old Norse as kon-r, 
in the sense of king. This kon-r is represented in 
the Hdda (Rigsmal, 38) as the youngest son of Jar‘, 
Jarl himself being the son of Fadir ok Médir, father 
and mother. The words corresponding to O.N. kon-r 
in Gothic and Old High-German would have been 
kwn-s and chun, and chuninc, king, might have been 
regularly derived from chun. 

I hold, on the contrary, that O.N. kon-r and 
konwng-r, O.H.G. chunine, AS. cyning, were common 
Aryan words, not formed out of German materials, 
but preserved as relics of an earlier period of lan- 
guage. It is only while gana, ganaka, and gani 
still conveyed the meaning of father and mother, and 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 323 


not yet simply of man and woman that a word, 
meaning mother, could have assumed the meaning 
of queen (cwén), and a word meaning father, the 
meaning of king (ganaka, konr, konwngr). In 
Gothic, however, as early as the fourth century, 
qino and géns mean already wife and woman only. 
In the eleventh century we read in Notker, Sol 
chena iro charal furhten unde minnon, ‘a wife shall 
fear and love her husband. After the fifteenth 
century the word is no longer used in High-German, 
but in the Scandinavian languages the word still 
lives on, karl and kona meaning man and wife. In 
English alone Queen has been preserved, as if the old 
meaning of mother in cwén had not yet been quite 
forgotten. IZf then Queen is the same word as Sanskrit 
gani, King can only be the same word as Sanskrit 
ganaka. | 

We thus see how languages reflect the history of 
nations, and how, if properly analysed, almost every 
word will tell us of many vicissitudes through which 
it passed on its way from Central Asia to India or to 
Persia, to Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, to Russia, 
Gaul, Germany, the British Isles, America, New Zea- 
land; nay, back again, in its world-encompassing 
migrations, to India and the Himalayan regions from 
which it started. Many a word has thus gone the 
round of the world, and it may go the same round 
again and again. For although words may change in 
sound and meaning to such an extent that not one 
single letter remains the same, and that their meaning 
sometimes becomes the very opposite of what it 
originally was, yet it is important to observe, that 

Yi 2 


324 CHAPTER VI. 


since the beginning of the world no new addition has 
ever been made to the substantial elements of speech, 
any more than to the substantial elements of nature. 
There is a constant change in language, a coming and 
going of words; but no man can ever invent an 
entirely new word. We speak to all intents and 
purposes substantially the same language as the 
earliest ancestors of our race; and, guided by the 
hand of scientific etymology, we may pass on from 
century to century through the darkest periods of the 
world’s history, till the stream of language on which 
we ourselves are moving carries us back to those 
distant regions where we seem to feel the presence of 
our earliest forefathers, and to hear the voices of the 
earth-born sons of Manu. 

Those distant regions in the history of language 
‘are, no doubt, the most attractive, and, if cautiously 
explored, full of instructive lessons to the historian 
and the philosopher. But before we ascend to those 
distant heights, we must learn to walk on the smoother 
ground of modern speech. The advice of Leibniz, 
that the Science of Language should be based on the 
study of modern dialects, has been but too much 
neglected, and the results of that neglect are visible 
in many works on Comparative Philology. Confining 
ourselves therefore for the present chiefly to the 
modern languages of Europe, let us see how we can 
establish the four fundamental points which constitute 
the Magna Charta of our science. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 325 


1. The same Word takes different Forms in different 
Languages. 


This sounds almost like a truism. If the six 
dialects which sprang from Latin have become six 
independent languages, it would seem to follow that 
the same Latin word must have taken a different form 
in each of them. French is different from Italian, 
Italian from Spanish, Spanish from Portuguese, 
because the same Latin words were pronounced dif- 
ferently by the inhabitants of the countries conquered 
or colonised by Rome, so that, after a time, the 
language spoken by the colonists of Gaul grew to be 
unintelligible to the colonists of Spain. Nevertheless, 
if we are told that the French méme is the same as 
the Italian medesimo, and that both are derived from 
the Latin zpse, we begin to see that even this first 
point requires to be carefully examined, and may 
help to strengthen our arguments against all ety- 
mology which trusts to vague similarity of sound or 
meaning. 


() How then can French méme be derived from Latin 


upse? By a process which is strictly genealogical, 


~™ and which furnishes us with a safer pedigree than that 


of the Montmorencys, or any other noble family. In 
Old French méme is spelt meisme, which comes very 
near to Spanish mismo and Portuguese mesmo. The 
corresponding term in Provencal is medesme, which 
throws light on the Italian medesimo. Instead of 
medesme, Old Provencal supplies smetessme. In order 
to connect this with Latin zpse, we have only to con- 


326 CHAPTER VI. 


sider that ipse passes through Old Provengal eps into 
Provencal eis, Italian esso, Spanish ese, and that the 
Old Spanish esora represents ipsdé hord, as French 
encore represents hance horam. If es is wpse, essme 
would be ipsissimum, Provencal medesme, netipsis- 
simum, and Old Provencal smetessme, semetipsiss- 
mums 

To a certain point it is a matter of historical rather 
than of philological inquiry, to find out whether the 
English beam is the German Bawm. Beam in Anglo- 
Saxon is béam, Frisian bém, Old Saxon bém and bém, 
Old High-German pawm, Middle High-German bowm, 
Modern High-German Bawm. It is only when we 
come to Gothic that philological arguments come in, 
in order to explain the appearance of g before m in 
Gothic bagm-s, and the appearance of ¢ in Old Norse 
badtm-r.? , 

If we take any word common to all the Teutonic 
dialects, we shall find that it varies in each, and that 
it varies according to certain laws. Thus, to hear is 
in Gothic hausjan, in Old Norse heyra, in Old Saxon | 
hérian, in Anglo-Saxon gehteran, in Old High-German 
héren, in Swedish héra, in Danish hére, in Dutch 
hooren, in Modern German /oéren. 

We have only to remember that English ranges, 
as far as its consonants go, with Gothic and Low- 
German, while Modern German belongs to the third 
or High-German stage, in order to discover with- 
out difficulty the meaning of many a German 

1 Diez, Grammatik and Lexicon, s. v. 


2 Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, ii. 66 ; 1.261; Brugmann, Vergleich- | 
ende Grammatik, § 179. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. S27) 


word by the mere application of Grimm’s Law. 
Thus :-— 


Te inte Ill. 


Drei is three Zehn is ten Tag is day 

Du is thou ZLagel is tail Trommel is drum 
Denn is then Zahn 1s tooth Traum is dream 
Durch is through Zaun is town T(h)euer is dear 
Denken is to think Zinn is tin T(h)au is dew 
Drang is throng Zerren is to tear Taube is dove 
Durst is thirst Zange is tong Teig is dough 


If we compare tear with the French larme, a mere 
consultation of historical documents would carry us 
from tear to the earlier forms, taer, tehr, teher, tevher, 
to the Gothic tagr. The A.S. téar or teeher, however, 
carries us back, as clearly as the Gothic tagr, to 
the corresponding form ddékry in Greek, and (d)asru 
in Sanskrit. We saw before how every Greek and 
Latin d is legitimately represented in Anglo-Saxon by 
t,andk by h. MUence téar or teher is dékry. In the 
same manner there is no difficulty in tracing the 
French larme back to Latin lacruma. The question 
then arises, are ddkry and lacruma cognate terms ? 
The secondary suffix ma in lacruwma is easily ex- 
plained, and we then have Greek ddkry and Latin 
lacru, differing only by their initials. Here a pho- 
netic law must remove the last difference. L 1s 
known to be a dialectic variety of d. Ddakry, there- 
fore, could vary with lacru, and both ean be traced 
back to a root dak, to bite.! 

The following table will show at a glance a 


1 See M.M., in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v. 152; Pott, Htymologische 
Forsehungen, ii. 58-60, 442, 450. 


3828 CHAPTER VI. 


few of the descendants of the Latin preposition 
ante— 
ANTE, before. 


It. anzi; Sp. dntes; Old Fr. ans, ains (ains-né=aine, elder ; puis- 
né, younger). 
ANTIANUS (Low-Datin). 
It. anziano; Sp. anciano ; Fr. ancien, old. 


» ANTE IPSUM. 
Old Fr. aincois, before. 


ABANTE, from before. 
It. avanti ; Fr. avant, before. 
It. avanzare; Sp. avanzar; Fr. avancer, to bring forward. 
It. vantaggio ; Sp. ventaja; Fr. avantage, advantage. 


DEABANTE. 
It. davanti; Fr. devant, before. 
Fr. devancer, to get before. 


If instead of Latin we begin with a Sanskrit word, 
and follow its relatives through their vicissitudes from 
the earliest to the latest times, we see no less clearly 
how inevitably one and the same word assumes different 
forms in different dialects. Tooth in Sanskrit is dat and 
danta (nom. sing. dantah, but genitive, of the old base, 
datah). The same word appears in Latin as dens, 
dentis, in Gothic as tunthus, in English as tooth, in 
Modern German as Zahn. All these dialectic changes 
are according to law, and it is not too much to say 
that in the different languages the common word for 
tooth could hardly have appeared under any form but 
that in which we find it. But is the Greek odots, 
odéntos, the same word as dens? And is the Greek 
odéntes, the Latin dentes, a mere variety of edontes 
and edentes, the eaters? Iam inclined to admit that 
the o in odéntes is a merely phonetic excrescence, for 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 329 


although I know of no other well-established case in 
Greek where a simple initial d assumes this prosthetic 
vowel, it would be against all rules of probability to 
suppose that Greek had lost the common Aryan term 
for teeth, danta, and replaced it by a new and inde- 
pendent word so exactly like the one which it had 
given up. Prosthetic vowels are very common in 
Greek before certain double consonants, and before 
r,l,n,m.t The addition therefore of an initial o in 
odéntes may provisionally be admitted. But if so, it 
follows that oddéntes cannot be a mere variety of 
edontes. For wherever Greek has these initial vowels, 
while they are wanting in Sanskrit, Latin, &c., they 
are, in the true sense of the word, prosthetic vowels. 
They are not radical, but merely adscititious in 
Greek, while if oddéntes were derived from the root 
ed, we should have to admit the loss of a radical 
initial vowel in all the members of the Aryan family 
except Greek—an admission unsupported by any 
analogy.” 

In languages which possess no ancient literature, 
the charm of tracing words back from century to 
century to its earliest form is of course lost. Con- 
temporary dialects, however, with their extraordinary 
varieties, teach us even there the same lessons, show- 
ing that language must change and is always chang- 
ing, and that similarity of sound is the same unsafe 
guide here as elsewhere. One instance must suffice. 


1 Curtius, Grundziige der Griechischen Etymologie, ti. 291; Savels- 
berg, in Hofer’s Zeitschrift, iv. p. 91. 

2 See Schleicher, Compendium, § 43; Brugmann, Vergleichende 
Grammatik, § 248. 


330 CHAPTER VI. 


Man in Malay is orang; hence orang utan, the man 
of the forest, the Orangutang. This orang is pro- 
nounced in different Polynesian dialects, rang, oran, 
olan, lan, ala, la, na, da, and ra.1 

We now proceed to a consideration of our second 
point. 


2. The same Word takes different Forms in the 
same Language. 


There are, as is well known, many Teutonie words 
which, through two distinct channels, found their 
way twice into the literary language of Chaucer, 
Shakespeare, and Milton. They were imported into 
England at first by Saxon pirates, who gradually 
dislodged the Roman conquerors and colonists from 
their castra and colonic, and the Welsh inhabitants 
from their villages, and whose language formed the 
first permanent stratum of Teutonic speech in these 
islands. They introduced such words as, for in- 
stance, weardian, to ward, wile, cunning, wise, manner. 
These words were German words, peculiar to those soft 
dialects of German which are known by the name 
of Low-German, and which were spoken on those 
northern coasts from whence the Juts, the Angles, 
and Saxons embarked on their freebooting expe- 
ditions. 

Another branch of the same German stem was the 
High-German, spoken by the Franks and other 
Teutonic tribes, who became the conquerors of Gaul, 
and who, though they adopted in time the language 


* Logan, Journal of Indian Archipelago, iii. p. 665. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. bol 


of their Roman subjects, preserved nevertheless in 
their conversational idiom a large number of their own 
home-spun words. The language of the French or 
Franks is now a Romanic dialect, and its grammar 
is but a blurred copy of the grammar of Cicero. 
But its dictionary is full of Teutonic words, more or 
less Romanised to suit the pronunciation of the 
Roman inhabitants of Gaul. Among warlike terms 
of German origin, we find in French guerre, the same 
as war; massacre, from metzeln, to cut down, or metz- 
gen, to butcher, which was itself originally derived 
from Latin macellum, meat-market; macellarius, 
butcher. Awberge, Italian albergo, the German Her- 
berge, barracks for the army, is the Old High-German 
heriberga ; bivouac, the German Beirwacht ; boulevard, 
German Bollwerk; bowrg, German Burg; bréche, a 
breach, from brechen; havresac, German Hafersack ; 
haveron, Old High-German habaro, oats ;' canapsa, 
the German Knappsack, i.e. Hss-sack, from knappen, 
knabern, or Schnappsack ;? éperon, Italian sperone, 
German Sporn; héraut, Italian araldo, German Heer- 
walt, while the modern German Herold is borrowed 
from the Old French héralt, modern French hérault. 
Many maritime words, again, came from German, 
more particularly from Low-German. French cha- 
loupe = Sloop, Dutch sloep; cahute = Dutch kajuit, 
German Kaue, or Koje; stribord, the right side of 
a ship, English starboard, Anglo-Saxon steorbord, 


1 See M. M., Uber Deutsche Schattirung Romanischer Worte in 
Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v. p. 14. 

2 Danneil, Worterbuch der Altmirkisch-plattdeutschen Mundart, 
1559, 8... 


332 CHAPTER VI. 


Steuerbord ; hdvre, Hafen; Nord, Sud, Est, Ouest, all 
came from German. 

But much commoner words are discovered to be 
German under a French disguise. Thus, haze, hedge, 
is the Old High-German hag, the modern German 
Hag and Gehaege, the English haw, and probably 
haha.’ It is preserved also in hips and haws. Hair, 
to hate, is Anglo-Saxon hatian. Hameau, hamlet, is 
Heim; hater, is to haste ; honnir, to blame, is Gothic 
haunjan, hohnen; harangue is (h)ring, as in ring- 
leader. The initial h betrays the German origin of 
all these words. Again, choisir, to choose, is kiesen, 
A.S. céosan, Gothic kiusan; danser, tanzen; causer, 
to chat, kosen ; dérober, to rob, rauben ; épier, to spy, 
spihen; gratter, kratzen; grimper, to climb, klim- 
men; grincer, grunsen, or Old High-German grimisén; 
gripper, greifen; rotir, rosten; tomber, to tumble ; 
guinder, to wind ; déguerpir, to throw away, werfen? 

It was this language, this Germanised Latin, which 
was adopted by the Norman invaders of France, 
themselves equally Teutonic, and representing origin- 
ally that third branch of the Teutonic stock of 
speech which is known by the name of Scandinavian. 
These Normans, or Northmen, speaking their newly- 
acquired Franco-Roman dialect, became afterwards 
the victors of Hastings, and their language, for a 
time, ruled supreme in the palaces, law courts, 


' Capitulaires de Charles le Chauve, tit. xxxvi.: ‘Quicunque istis 
temporibus castella et firmitates et haias sine nostro verbo fecerint.’ 
Brachet, Diction. étymologique. 

* See Diez, Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, passim. Borring, 
Sur la Limite méridionale de la Monarchie danoise. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 393 


churches, and colleges of England. The same thing, 
however, which had happened to the Frank con- 
querors of Gaul and the Norman conquerors of Neus- 
tria happened again to the Norman conquerors of 
England. They had to acquire the language of 
their conquered subjects; and as the Franks, though 
attempting to speak the language of the Roman 
provincials, retained large numbers of barbaric terms, 
the Normans, though attempting to conform to the 
rules of the Saxon grammar, retained many a Nor- 
man word which they had brought with them from 
France. 

Thus the German word wise was common to the 
High and the Low branches of the German language; 
it was a word as familiar to the Frank invaders of Gaul 
as it was to the Saxon invaders of England. In the 
mouths of the Roman citizens of France, however, the 
German initial W had been replaced by the more gut- 
tural sound of gu.t. Wise had become guise, and in this 
new form it succeeded in gaining a place side by side 
with its ancient prototype, wise. By the same process 
guile, the old French guile, was adopted in English, 
though it was the same word originally as the Anglo- 
Saxon wile, which we have in wily. The changes 
have been more violent through which the Old High- 
German wetti, a pledge (Gothic wadz), became changed 
into the medieval Latin wadiwm or vadium,? Italian 


1 Exactly the same transition took place in Biluchi. Here gw repre- 
sents an original v before a, g represents v before i. Thus gwark is 
wolf, Zend vehrko, and gist is twenty, Zend visaitt. See Geiger, Die 
Dialect-spaltung in Balichi, 1889, p. 84. 

2 Diez, Lexicon Comparativum, 8. v. 


334 CHAPTER VI. 


gaggvo, and French gage. Nevertheless, we must re- 
cognise in the verbs to engage or disengage Norman 
varieties of the same word, which is preserved in the 
pure Saxon forms to bet and to wed,! literally to bind 
or to pledge. 

There are many words of the same kind which 
have obtained admittance twice into the language of 
England, once in their pure Saxon form, and again in 
their Romanic disguise. Words beginning in Italian 
with gua, gue, gui are almost invariably of German 
origin. A few words are mentioned, indeed, in which 
a Latin vy seems to have been changed into g. But 
as, according to general usage, Latin v remains v in 
the Romanic dialects, it would be more correct to 
say that in these exceptional cases Latin words had 
first been adopted and corrupted by the Germans, and 
then, as beginning with German w, and no longer 
with Latin v, been readopted by the Roman pro- 
vincials. 

These exceptional cases, however, are very few, and 
somewhat doubtful. It was natural, no doubt, to 
derive the Italian guado, a ford, the French gué, from. 
Latin vadwm. But the initial gua points first to 
German, and there we find in Old High-German wat, 
a ford, watan, to wade. The Spanish vadear may be 
derived from Latin, or it may owe its origin to a 
confusion in the minds of those who were speaking 
and thinking in two languages, a Teutonic and a 
Romanic. The Latin vadwm and the German wat 
may claim a distant relationship. 


* In the North one still hears such expressions as ‘I’ll wad ye a 
pound’; ‘ 1’ll wad it is go.’ 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 335 


Guere in je ne crois guere was for a time traced 
back to parum, varium, valide, avare, or grandem 
rem, the Provencal granren. But, like the Italian 
guari, it really comes from wdri, true, which gradu- 
ally assumed the meaning of very. The Latin verus 
changes to vero, while vrai, Old French veraz, comes 
from medizval Latin veragus, a secondary form of 
VETM, 

Guastare, French gdter, has been traced back to 
Latin vastare; but it is clearly derived from Old 
High-German wastjan, to waste, though again a con- 
fusion of the two words may be adinitted in the minds 
of the bilingual Franks. 

Guépe, wasp, is generally derived from vespa; it 
really comes from the German Wespe.? 

It has frequently been pointed out that this very 
fact, the double existence of the same word (warden 
and guardian, &c.), has added much to the strength 
and variety of English. Slight shades of meaning 
can thus be kept distinct, which in other languages 
must be allowed to‘run together. The English fresh, 
AS. fersc, frisky, and brisk,? all come, according to 
Grimm, from the same source.* Yet there is a great 
difference between a brisk horse, a frisky horse, and 


1 Diez, Lexicon Comp. s.v., second edition, proposes weiger instead 
of wart. 

2 In Ital. golpe and volpe, Span. vulpeja, Fr. goupil, Lat. vulpecula, 
and a few more words of the same kind, mentioned by Diez (p. 267), 
the cause of confusion is less clear ; but even if admitted as real excep- 
tions, or as due to false analogy, they would in no way invalidate the 
general rule. 

3 Brisk comes from Welsh brysg. 

4 Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, ii. 63, friskan, frask, fruskun ; 
0.H.G. friscing, victima (caro recens), frischling, porcellus. 


336 CHAPTER VI. 


a fresh horse—a difference which it would be difficult 
to express in any other language. It is a cause of 
weakness in language if many ideas have to be 
expressed by the same word, and fresh in English, 
though relieved by brisk, and frisky, embraces still 
a great variety of conceptions. We hear of a fresh 
breeze, of fresh water (opposed to stagnant), of fresh 
butter, of fresh news, of a fresh hand, a freshman, 
of freshness of body and mind; and such a variation 
as a brisk fire, a brisk debate, is therefore all the 
more welcome. J’resh has passed through a Latin 
channel, as may be seen from the change of its vowel, 
and to a certain extent from its taking in refresh- 
ment the suffix ment, which is generally, though 
not entirely, restricted to Latin words! Under a 
thoroughly foreign form it exists in English as fresco, 
in fresco-paintings, so called because the paint was 
applied to the walls whilst the plaster was still fresh 
or damp. 

The same process explains the presence of double 
forms, such as ship and skiff, the French esquif; from 
which is derived the Old French esquiper, the Modern 
French équiper, the English to equip. Or again, sloop 
and shallop, the French chaloupe. Thus bank and 
bench are German; banquet is German Romanised. 
Bar is German (O.H.G. para); barrier is Romanised, 
cf. Span. barra a bar, French embarras, and English 
embarrassed. Ball is German; balloon Romanised. 
To pack is German; bagage Romanised. Ring, a 
circle, is German; O.H.G. hring; to harangue, to 


* After Saxon verbs, ment is found in shipment, fulfilment, forebode- 
ment. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. STA 


address a ring, to act as a ringleader, is Romanised ; 
It. aringa, Fr. la harangue. 

Sometimes it happens that the popular instinct of 
etymology reacts on these Romanised German words, 
and, after tearing off their foreign mask, restores to 
them a more homely expression. Thus the German 
Krebs, the O.H.G. krébiz, is originally the same word 
as the English crab. This krébiz appears in French 
as écrevisse; it returned to England in this outlandish 
form, and was by an off-hand etymology reduced to 
the Modern English crayfish. 

It will hardly be believed, but there is the Times 
of March 28, 1885, to prove it, that in an action 
brought by Caygill v. Thwaite a question was raised 
and stated by justices, whether crayfish are ‘fish’ 
within the meaning of the Larceny Act (24 and 25 
Victoria, c. 96). The magistrates were of opinion 
that they could not legally convict a man for taking 
crayfish, because crayfish are invertebrate animals, 
and a species of crustacea, and not fish within the 
meaning of the Act. The judge, however, Mr. Justice 
Mathew, decided that crayfish came within the Act. 
‘He really could give no better reason for his de- 
cision, he said,‘ than that crayfish are fish. Probably 
the magistrates thought that shell-fish were not 
within the Act. But there was no reason why they 
should got be, for they were within the mischief of 
the Act when they were taken in a private fishery.’ 
The last argument may be quite just, but unless the 
O.H.G. krébiz had been changed into Fr. érevisse, 
and this into crayfish, no one would probably ever 

IT. Z 


338 CHAPTER VI. 


have thought of mooting the question whether cray- 
fish were fish. 

And as the German elements entered into the 
English language at various times and under various 
forms, so did the Latin. Latin elements flowed into 
England at four distinet periods, and through four 
distinct channels. 

First, through the Roman legions and Roman 
colonists, from the time of Czesar’s conquest, 55 B. C., 
to the withdrawal of the Roman legions in 412: 
e.g. colonia = coln ; castra = chester (ceastra); stratwm 
= street (strét). 

Secondly, through the Christian missionaries and 
priests, from the time of St. Augustine’s landing in 
597 to the time of Alfred: e.g. candela = candle ; 
Kyriake = church; decanus = dean; requa= rule ; 
corona = crown; discus = dish; uncia = vnch. 

Thirdly, through the Norman nobility and Norman 
ecclesiastics and lawyers, who, from the days of 
Edward the Confessor, brought into England a large 
number of Latin terms, either in their classical or in 
their vulgar and Romanised form. 

Fourthly, through the students of the classical 
literature of Rome, since the revival of learning to 
the present day. 

These repeated importations of Latin words account 
for the coexistence in English of such terms as minster 
and monastery. Minster found its way into English 
through the Christian missionaries, and is found in 
its corrupt or Anglicised form in the earliest docu- 
ments of the Anglo-Saxon language. Monastery was 
the same word, as pronounced by later scholars, or 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 309 


clergymen, familiar with the Latin idiom. Thus 
paragraph is the Latin paragraphus, but slightly 
altered; pilcrow, pylcrafte, and paraf, are vulgar 
corruptions of the same word.' Arithmetic in the 
middle ages was called Awgrim or algrim. The idea 
which children at school connected with the name, 
requires no explanation. But even more extraordi- 
nary is the etymology of the word suggested by the 
author of an early English treatise, Craft of Algrim, 
mentioned in Mr. Thomas Wright’s edition of the 
Alliterative Poem on the Deposition of King Rechard 
IT., 1838, p. 58. 

‘The name of this craft is in Latyn Algorismus, and in English 
Algrim, and it is narcid off Algos, that is to say, craft, and 
rismus, that is, nounbre, and ffor this skille it is called craft of 
nounbringe. Or it is named off en, that is, in, and gogos, that 
is, ledyng, and rismus, that is, nounbre, as to say, ledynge in to 
nounbre. Or it is named after the Philozophare that ffrist con- 
trevyd it, wos name was Algus, &c.’ 


The real origin of the word algorismus is explained 
by M. Reinaud in his Mémoire sur Inde, p. 303. 


‘Je me permettrai ici une conjecture. Dans les traités latins 
du moyen Age, le nouveau systeme de numération est désigné 
par la dénomination d’ Algorismus ou Algorithmus. D’un autre 
coté, les mots Algorismus et Alkhorismus et Algorithmus servent 
& désigner un écrivain arabe surnommé Al-Kharizmy ou le Kha- 
rizmin, du nom du Kharizm, sa patrie; et cet écrivain s’était 
occupé de la science des nombres. I] me parait que le nom 
donné au nouveau systeme de numération n’est pas autre que 
celui du personnage dont les écrits, traduits en latin, avaient 
répandu la connaissance de ce systeme en Occident.’ 


This native of Kharizm, quoted as Alchoarizam 


1 See Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 398. - 
Z 2 


340 CHAPTER VI. 


magister Indorum, was really Mohammed ben Musa, 
who wrote in the first half of the ninth century, and 
whose treatise on Algebra was at an early time trans- 
lated into Latin." 

In a similar way, the verb fo blame became natu- 
ralised in England through the Norman Conquest. 
The original Latin or Greek word from which the 
French bldmer was derived kept its place in the form 
of to blaspheme in the more cultivated language of 
the realm. Triwmph was a Latin word, naturally 
used in the ecclesiastical and military language of 
every country. In its degraded form, la triomphe, it 
was peculiar to French, and was brought into England 
by the Norman nobility as trump, trump card.” 

We can watch the same process more fully in the 
history of the French language. That language 
teems with Latin words which, under various dis- 
guises, obtained repeated admittance into its dic- 
tionary. They came first with the legions that 
settled in Gaul, and whose more or less vulgar 
dialects supplanted the Celtic idiom of the country. 
They came again in the track of Christian mission- 
aries, and not unfrequently were smuggled in for the 
third time by the classical scholars of a later age. 
The Latin sacramentum, in its military acceptation, 
became the French serment; in its ecclesiastical 
meaning it appears as sacrement. Redemptio, in its 
military sense, became the French rangon, ransom ; in 
its religious meaning it preserved the less mutilated 
form of redemption. Other words belonging to the 


1 See vol. i. p. 201. 2 Trench, On Words, p. 156. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. . 341 


same class are acheter, to buy, accepter, to accept, 
both derived from the Latin acceptare. Chétif, 
miserable (sometimes pronounced ch’ti),' and captif, 
both from Latin captivus. Chose, a thing, cause, a 
cause, both from Latin causa. Facon and faction, 
from Latin factio; meaning originally the manner of 
doing a thing, then peculiarity, then party. Both 
fraile and fragile come from fragilis. On and 
Vhomme, from homo. Noél, Christmas, and natal, 
from natalis. Naif and natif from nativus. Parole 
and parabole from parabola. Penser, to weigh or 
ponder in one’s mind, and pesev, to weigh on scales, 
both come from Latin pensare. Pension also is de- 
rived from pensum. In Latin, too, ewpendo is used 
in the sense of spending money, and of weighing or 
considering.” 

The Latin pronoun le exists in French under two 
different forms. It is the 2 of the pronoun of the 
third person, and the le of the definite article. Of 
course it must not be supposed for a moment that by 
any kind of agreement i/le was divided into two parts, 
i being put aside for the pronoun, and le for the 
article. The pronoun 7 and elle in French, egli and 
ella in Italian, ed and el/a in Spanish, are nothing but 
provincial varieties of alle and ila. The same words, 
ile and cla, used as articles, and therefore pronounced 
more rapidly, became gradually changed from 7, 
which we see in the Italian 7/, to el, which we have 
in Spanish ; to do (illum), which exists in Proveneal 
and in Italian (lo spirito); and to de, which appears 
in Provengal dialects and in French. 

1 Revue critique, i. p. 359. * Biographies of Words, p. 67. 


342 CHAPTER VI. 


As there are certain laws which govern the tran- © 
sition of Latin into French and Italian, it is easy to 
determine whether such a word as opera in French is 
of native growth, or imported from Italian. French 
has invariably shortened the final @ into e, and a 
Latin p in the middle of words is generally changed 
into French 6 or v. This is not the case in Italian. 
Thus the Latin apis, a bee, becomes in Italian ape, 
in French abeille.! The Latin capillus is the Italan 
capello, the French cheveu. Thus opera has become 
cwvre in French, whereas in Italian it remained 
opera,” Spanish obra. 

There is a small class of words in French which 
ought to be mentioned here, in order to show under 
how many disguises words have slipped in again 
and again into the precincts of that language. They 
are words neither Teutonic nor Romanic, but a cross 
between the two. They are Latin in appearance, 
but it would be impossible to trace them back to 
Latin, unless we knew that the people who spoke 
this Latin were Germans who still thought in German. 
If a German speaks a foreign tongue, he commits 

1 Diez, Romanische Grammatik, i.177. There are exceptions to this 
rule; for instance, Italian riva, for ripa ; savio for sapio ; and in French, 
such words as vapeur, stupide, capitaine, Old French chevetain. 

2 Thid. ii. 20. Opera is not the Latin opus, used as a feminine, but 
the plural of opus. Such neutral plurals were frequently changed 
into Romanic feminines, and then used in the singular. Thus Latin 
gaudia, plural neut., is the French joie, fem. sing., Italian gioja. A 
diminutive of the French joie is the Old French joel, a little pleasure ; 
the English jewel, the French joyau. 

Latin arma, neut. plur. Italian and Sp. arma ‘Fr. V'arme 
» Jjolia - It. foglia Fr. fewille 


»  vela 5 It. and Sp. vela Fr, voile 
sp DOTUAL Ga k., It. battaglia Fr. bataille. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 343 


certain mistakes which a Frenchman never would 
commit, and vice versd. A German speaking English 
would be inclined to say to bring w sacrifice; a French- 
man would never make that mistake. A French- 
man, on the contrary, is apt to say that he cannot 
attend any longer, meaning that he cannot wait any 
longer. Englishmen, again, travelling abroad, have 
been heard to call for Wachter, meaning the waiter ; 
they have declared, in German, Ich habe einen grossen 
Geist Sie nieder zu klopfen, meaning they had a great 
mind to knock a person down; and they have an- 
nounced in French, J’ai changé mon esprit autour de 
cette tasse de café, meaning that they had changed 
their mind about a cup of coffee. 

There are many more mistakes of that kind, which 
grammarians call Germanisms, Gallicisms, or Angli- 
cisms, and for which pupils are constantly reproved 
by their masters. 

Now the Germans who came to settle in Italy and 
Gaul, and who learnt to express themselves in Latin 
tant bien que mal, had no such masters to reprove 
them. On the contrary, their Roman subjects did 
the best they could to understand their Latin jargon, 
and, if they wished to be very polite, they would 
probably repeat the mistakes which their masters 
had committed. In this manner, the most un- 
grammatical, the most unidiomatic phrases would, 
after a time, become current in the vulgar language." 


1 Castelvetro, in his Correttione d’aleune cose del dialogo delle lin- 
gue di Benedetto Varchi, et wna giunta al primo libro delle Prose di 
M. Pietro Bembo : Basileea, 1572, expressed the same view in almost 
the same words: ‘ Et cominciarono i fanciulli italiani a dimesticarsi, et 


344 CHAPTER VI. 


No Roman would have expressed the idea of en- 
tertaining or amusing by intertenere. Such an ex- 
pression would have conveyed no meaning at all 
to Ceesar or Cicero. The Germans, however, were 
accustomed to the idiomatic use of wnterhalten, 
Unterhaltung; and when they had to make them- 
selves understood in Latin, they probably rendered 
unter by inter, halten by tenere, and thus formed 
entretenrr, a word owned neither by Latin nor 
by German. 

It is difficult, no doubt, to determine in each case 
whether words like zntertenere, in the sense of enter- 
taining, were formed by Germans speaking in Latin 
but thinking in German, or whether one and the 
same metaphor suggested itself both to Romans and 
Germans. It might seem at first sight that the 
French circonstance, circumstance, was a barbarous 
translation of the German Umstand, which expresses 
the same idea by exactly the same metaphor. But 
if we consult the later Latin literature, we find there, 
in works which could hardly have experienced any 
influence of German idiom, circwmstantia, in the sense 
of quality or accident; and we learn from Quintilian, 
v. 10, 104, that the word had been formed in Latin 
as an equivalent of the Greek peristasis. 

In other cases, however, it admits of no doubt that 
words now classical in the modern languages of 
Kurope were originally the unidiomatic blunders of 


a mescolarsi co’ fanciulli longobardi, cui havendo rispetto, et portando 
honore per la signoria che havevano sopra se, cercarono di rassomigliare 
le parole guaste insegnate loro dalle nutrici, et dalle madri, et da padri 
poco puramente parlanti.’ (p. 154.) 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 345 


Germans attempting to express themselves in the 
Latin of their conquered provinces. 

The future is called in German Zukunft, which 
means ‘what is to come.’! There is no such word 
in ancient Latin, but the Germans again translated 
their conception of future time literally into Latin, 
and thus formed J’avenir, what is to come, ce qui est 
a venir. Lavenir cannot be simply the Latin ad- 
venire, for Vavenir means what is to come,—as 
Browning says, ‘Chain the to-come,—while advenire 
would only mean the coming. 

One of the many German expressions for sick or 
unwell is wnpass. It is used even now, wnpidsslich, 
Unpdsslichkeit. The corresponding Latin expression 
would have been wger, but instead of this we find 
the Provencal malapte, It. malato, Fr. malabde and 
malade. Aptus, in the sense of fit or well, occurs as 
ate.2 Malapte is therefore the Latin male-aptus, 
meaning unfit, again an unidiomatic rendering of 
unpass. What happened was this. Male-aptus was 
at first as great a mistake in Latin as if a German 
speaking English were to take wnpass in the sense of 
wipassend, and were to say, ‘that he was unfit,’ 
meaning he was unwell. But as there was no one to 
correct the German lords and masters, the expression 
matle-aptus was tolerated, was probably repeated by 
good-natured Roman physicians, and became after 


1 In Klaus Groth’s Fiv nie Leder ton Singn un Beden ver Schleswig- 
Holsteen, 1864, tokum, i. e. to come, is used as an adjective: ‘Se kamt 
wedder to tokum Jahr.’ 

2 In Barlaam et Josaphat (p. 26, v. 21), Josaphat asks whether all 
men are ill, and the answer is: ‘ Nenil, ates i a assés.’ Cf. Gaston 
Paris, Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique, tom. i. p. 91. 


346 CHAPTER VI. 


a time a recognised term. M. Brachet derives 
malade from male habitus; but does this expression 
ever occur in medizval Latin ? 

One more word of the same kind, the presence of 
which in French, Italian, and English it would be 
impossible to explain except as a Germanism, as a 
blunder committed by people who spoke in Latin, 
but thought in German. 

Gegend. in German means region or country. It 
is Gegendte in Old High-German, and it signified 
originally that which is before or against, what forms 
the object of our view. Now in Latin gegen, or 
against, would be expressed by contra; and the 
Germans, not recollecting at once the Latin word 
regio, took to translating their idea of Gegend, that 
which was before them, by contratum, or terra con- 
trata. This became the Italian contrada, the French 
contrée, the English country. 


‘Cf. M. M., Ueber Deutsche Schattirung Romanischer Worte, in 
Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v.11. Kluge imagines that the German Gegend 
was a translation of French contrée. See Caix, Saggio della Storia 
della Lingua e dei dialetti @ Italia, p. lii. 

I take this opportunity of stating that I never held the opinion 
ascribed to me by M. Littré (Journal des Savants, avril 1856 ; Histovre 
de la Langue francaise, 1863, vol. i. p. 94), with regard to the origin of 
the Romanic languages. My object was to explain certain features of 
these languages, which, I hold, would be inexplicable if we looked upon 
French, Italian, and Spanish merely as secondary developments of 
Latin. They must be explained, as I tried to show, by the fact that 
the people in whose minds and mouths these modern dialects grew up, 
were not all Romans or Roman provincials, but tribes thinking in 
German and trying to express themselves in Latin. It was this addi- 
tional disturbing agency to which I endeavoured to call attention, with- 
out fora moment wishing to deny other more normal and generally 
admitted agencies which were at work in the formation of the Neo- 
Latin dialects, as much as in all other languages advancing from what 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 347 


Accidents like those which we have hitherto dis- 
cussed are, no doubt, more frequent in the modern 
history of speech, because, owing to ethnic migra- 
tions and political convulsions, the dialects of neigh- 
bouring or distant races have become mixed up 
together more and more with every century that has 
passed over the ethnological surface of Europe. But 
in ancient times also there had been migrations, and 
wars, and colonies, causing a dislocation and inter- 
mixture of the various strata of human speech, and 
the literary languages of Greece and Rome, however 
uniform they may seem to us in their classical writings, 
had grown up, like French or English, by a constant 
process of absorption and appropriation, exercised on 
the various dialects of Italy and Greece. What 
happened in French happened in Latin. As the 
French are no longer aware that their paysan, a 
peasant, and paien, a pagan, were originally but 
slight dialectic varieties of the same Latin word 
paganus, a villager, the citizen of Rome used the two 
words /wna, moon, and Lucina, the goddess, without 
being aware that both were derived from the same 
root. If luna is derived from a root luk, not luks, 


has been called a synthetic to an analytic state of grammar. In trying 
to place this special agency in its proper light, I may have expressed 
myself somewhat incautiously; but if I had to express again my own 
view on the origin of the Romanic languages, Icould not do it more clearly 
and accurately than in adopting the words of my eminent critic: ‘A 
mon tour, venant, par la série de ces études, & m’occuper du débat ou- 
vert, jy prends une position intermédiaire, pensant que, essentiellement, 
c’est la tradition latine qui domine dans les langues romanes, mais que 
Vinvasion germanique leur a porté un rude coup, et que de ce conflit ot 
elles ont failli suecomber, et avec elles la civilisation, il leur est resté 
des cicatrices encore apparentes et qui sont, & un certain point de vue, 
ces nuances germaniques signalées par Max Miiller.’ 


348 CHAPTER VI. 


then the final c is elided, not by caprice or accident, 
but according to a general phonetic rule which 
sanctions the omission of a guttural before a liquid. 
Thus dwmen, light, stands for luemen; examen for 
exagmen (but agmen); flamma, flame, for flagma, 
from flagrare, to burn; flamen for flagmen, the 
lighter, the priest (not brahman); lanio, a butcher, 
if derived from a root akin to lacerare, to lacerate, 
stands for dacnio. Contaminare, to contaminate, is cer- 
tainly derived from the same verb tango, to touch, from 
which we have contagio, contagion, as well as integer, 
intact, entire. Contaminare, therefore, was origin- 
ally contagminare. This is in fact the same phonetic 
rule which, if applied to Greek and Latin, helps us to 
discover the identity of the Greek l/dchné, wool, and 
Latin /dna; of Greek ardchné, a spider, and Latin 
ardnea.! Though a scholar like Cicero* might have 
been aware that ala, a wing, was but an abbreviated 
form of axilla, the arm-pit, the two words were as 
distinct to the common citizen of Rome as paien and 
paysan to the modern Frenchman. Tela, a web, 
must, on the same principle, be derived from texela, 

1 J prefer decidedly to take Zéna=Adxvn, and not, as Curtius does 
(p. 844), as=Sk. vlana. Vlana does not exist in Sanskrit, but only 
urna, which is the same as Lit. vilna, Gothic wulla. From the same 
root var, to cover, we have in Latin vellus and villus, in Greek ¢lpos. 
L 4na, on the contrary, and Aaxvy come from a root rak and lak, to 
plat, to spin, from whence Lachesis, like kléthé, the spinning Parca. 
See Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v. p. 142; vii. p. 174; xii. p. 378. 

2 <Quomodo enim vester Azilla Ala factus est nisi fuga liters vas- 
tioris, quam literam etiam e maaillis et tavillis et vexillo et paaxillo 
consuetudo elegans Latini sermonis evellit.—Cicero, Orat. 45, § 153. 
In spite of this, Latin dictionaries give axilla as a diminutive of ala. 


Ala may be compared with O.H.G. ahsala, but the phonetic change, 
the loss of cs in aa’la, took place on Latin soil, 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 349 


and this from the verb texere, to weave. Thus mala, 
the cheek, is derived from mawilla, the jawbone, and 
velum, a sail or veil, from vexillwm, anything flying 
or moved by the wind, a streamer, a flag, or a banner, 
simply, as Cicero says, by the consuetudo elegans 
Latini sermonis. Once in possession of this rule, 
we are able to discover even in such modern and 
metamorphosed words as subtle, the same Latin 
root texere, to weave, which appeared in tela. From 
texere was formed the Latin adjective subtilis, that 
which is woven under or beneath, with the same 
metaphor which leads us to say fine spun; and this 
subtelis dwindled down into the English subtle. 

Other words in Latin, the difference of which must 
be ascribed to the influence of local pronunciation, are 
cors and cohors, nil and nihil, mi and mihi, prendo 
and prehendo, prudens and providens, bruma, the 
winter solstice, and brevissima, scil. dies, the shortest 
day." Thus, again, suswm stands for surswm, up- 
ward, from sub and versum. Sub, it is true, means 
generally below, under; but, like the Greek hypd, it 
is used in the sense of ‘from below,’ and thus may 
seem to have two meanings diametrically opposed to 
each other, below and upward. Submittere means to 
place below, to lay down, to submit; sublevare, to lift 
from below, to raise up. Suwmmus, a superlative of 
sub, hypatos, a superlative of hypd, do not mean the 
lowest, but the highest.2 As swb-versuwm glides into 


* Pott, Hiymologische Forschungen, i. p. 645. 

* The Sanskrit upa and upari have been compared with Greek 
bré and inép, Latin sub and super, Gothic uf and ufar. The initial s, 
however, is difficult to account for. 


350 CHAPTER VI. 


sursum and susum, so retroversum becomes re- 
trorsum, retrosum, and rursum. Proverswm becomes 
prorsum, originally forward, straightforward ; and 
hence oratio prosa, straightforward speech or prose, 
opposed to oratio vincta, fettered or measured speech, 
poetry.’ 

We find a very similar result, local variety pro- 
duced by muscular relaxation, when we compare 
German Nagel with nail, Zagel with tail, Hagel with 
hail, Riegel with rail, Regen with rain, Pflegel with 
flail, Segel with sail, &c. 

Now as we look upon Aolic and Doric, Ionie and 
Attic, as dialects of one and the same language; as we 
discover in the Romanic languages mere varieties of 
the Latin, and in the Scandinavian, the High-German, 
and Low-German, only three branches of one and the 
same stock, we must learn to look upon Greek and 
Latin, Teutonic and Celtic, Slavonic, Sanskrit, and 
the ancient Persian, as so many varieties of one and 
the same original speech, which were fixed after 
many centuries as literary and classical languages. 
Taking this point of view, we shall be able to under- 
stand how what happens in the modern, happened in 
the ancient periods of the history of language. The 
same word, with but slight dialectic variations, exists 
in Greek, Latin, Gothic, and Sanskrit; and vocables, 
which at first sight appear totally different, are 
separated from each other by no greater difference 
than that which separates an Italian word from its 
cognate term in French. There is little similarity to 
the naked eye between pen and feather, yet if placed 


1 Quint. 9, 4: ‘oratio alia vincta atque contexta, alia soluta.’ 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 301 


under the microscope of comparative grammar, both 
words disclose exactly the same structure. Both are 
derived from a root pat, which in Sanskrit means to 
fly, and which is easily recognised in the Greek 
petomat, I fly. From this root a Sanskrit word is 
derived by means of the instrumental suffix tra, 
pat-tra, or pata-tra, meaning the instrument of 
flying, a wing, or a feather. From the same root 
another substantive was derived, which became current 
in the Latin dialect of the Aryan speech, patna or 
petna, meaning equally an instrument of flying, or 
a feather. This petna became changed into penna, 
a change which rests not merely on phonetic analogy, 
but is confirmed by Festus, who mentions the inter- 
mediate Italian form, pesna.1 The Teutonic dialect 
retained the same derivative which we saw in 
Sanskrit, only modifying its pronunciation according 
to rule. Thus patra had to be changed into 
phathra, in which we easily recognise the English 
feather. Thus pen and feather, the one from a Latin, 
the other from a Teutonic source, are established as 
merely phonetic varieties of the same word, analogous 
in every respect to such double words as those which 
we pointed out in Latin, which we saw in much 
larger numbers in French, and which impart not 
only the charm of variety, but the power of minute 
exactness to the language of Chaucer, Shakespeare, 
and Milton. 


+ Cf. Greek éperpés, Latin resmus and remus. Triresmos occurs in 
the inscription of the Columna Rostrata. 


352 CHAPTER VI. 


3. Different Words take the same Form in 
different Languages. 


We have examined in full detail two of the propo- 
sitions which serve to prove that in scientific ety- 
mology identity of origin is in no way dependent on 
identity of sound or meaning. If words could for 
ever retain their original sound and their original 
meaning, language would have no history at all. 
There would have been no confusion of tongues, and 
our language would still be the language of our first 
ancestors. But it is the very nature of language to 
grow and to change, and unless we are able to dis- 
cover the rules of this change, and the laws of this 
erowth, we shall never succeed in tracing back to 
their original source and primitive import the mani- 
fold formations of human speech, scattered in endless 
variety over all the villages, towns, countries, and 
continents of our globe. The radical elements of lan- 
guage are so extremely few, and the words which 
constitute the dialects of mankind so countless, that 
unless it had been possible to express the infinitesimal 
shades of human thought by the slightest differences 
in derivation or pronunciation, we should never 
understand how so colossal a fabric could have been 
reared from materials so scanty. Etymology is the 
knowledge of the changes of words, and so far from 
expecting identity, or even similarity of sound in the 
outward appearance of a word, aS now used in 
English, and as used by the poets of the Veda, we 
should always be on our guard against any etymology 
which would fain make us believe that certain words 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 353 


which exist in French existed in exactly the same 
form in Latin, or that certain Latin words could be 
discovered without the change of a single letter in 
Greek or Sanskrit. If there is any truth in the 
laws which govern the growth of language, we can 
lay it down with perfect certainty, that words of 
identically the same sound in English and in Sanskrit 
cannot be the same words. And this leads us to our 
third proposition. It does happen now and then 
that in languages, whether related to each other or 
not, certain words appear of identically the same 
sound and with some similarity of meaning. These 
words, which former etymologists seized upon as 
most confirmatory of their views, are now looked 
upon with well-founded mistrust. Attempts, for 
instance, continue to be made at comparing Hebrew 
words with the words of Aryan languages. If this is 
done with a clear perception of the immense distance 
which separates the Semitic from the Aryan lan- 
guages, it can do no harm. But if instead of being 
satisfied with pointing out the faint coincidences 
in the lowest and most general elements of speech, 
scholars imagine they can discover isolated cases of 
minute coincidence amidst the general disparity in 
the grammar and dictionary of the Aryan and Semitic 
families of speech, their attempts become unscientific 
and reprehensible. 

It is surprising, considering the immense number 
of words that might be formed by freely mixing the 
twenty-five letters of our alphabet, that in languages 
belonging to totally different families, the same ideas 
should sometimes be expressed by the same or very 

TI. Aa 


3504 CHAPTER VI. 


similar words. Dr. Rae, in order to prove some kind 
of relationship between the Polynesian and Aryan 
languages, quotes the Tahitian pura, to blaze as a 
fire, the New Zealand ka-pura, fire, as similar to Greek 
pyr, fire. He compares Polynesian ao, sunrise, with 
Eos; Hawaian mawna with mons; Hawaian zke, he 
saw or knew, with Sanskrit iksh, to see; manao, I 
think, with Sanskrit man, to think; noo, I perceive, 
and 00-noo, wise, with Sanskrit gra, to know ; orero 
or orelo, a continuous speech, with oratio; kala, I 
proclaim, with Greek kalein, to call; kalanga, con- 
tinuous speech, with harangue ; kant and kakanz, to 
sing, with cano; mele, a chaunted poem, with méos." 

It is easy to multiply instances of the same kind. 
Thus in the Kafir language to beat is beta, to tell is 
tyelo, hollow is wholo.* 

In Modern Greek eye is mati, a corruption of om- 
mation; in Polynesian eye is mata, and in Lithuanian 
mataw is to see. 

And what applies to languages which, in the usual 
sense of the word, are not related at all, such as 
Hebrew and English, or Hawaian and Greek, applies 
with equal force to cognate languages. Here, too, a 
perfect identity of sound between words of various 
dialects is always suspicious. No scholar would 
now-a-days venture to compare to look with Sanskrit 
lokayati; to speed with Greek speido; to call with 
Greek kalein; to care with Latin cura. The English 


1 See M.M., Turanian Languages, p. 95, seg. Pott, in Deutsche 
Morgenlindische Gesellschaft, ix. 430, containing an elaborate criticism 
on M. M.’s Turanian Languages. The same author has collected some 
more accidental coincidences in his Htymologische Forschungen, ii. 480. 

? Appleyard, Kafir Language, p. 3. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 355 


sound of 7 which in English expresses an eye, oculus, 
serves in German in the sense of egg, ovum; and it 
would not seem unreasonable to take both words as 
expressive of roundness, applied in the one case to 
an egg, in the other to an eye. The English eye, 
however, must be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon 
éage, Gothic augé, German Auge, words distantly 
akin to Sanskrit akshi, the Latin oculus, the Greek 
dsse; whereas the German Zi, which in Old High- 
German forms its plural eigir, is identical with the 
English egg, the Latin ovwm, the Greek oFon, and 
possibly connected with avis, bird. This Anglo- 
Saxon éage, eye, dwindles down to y in daisy, and to 
ow in window, supposing that window is the Old 
Norse vindauga, the Swedish vinddoga, the Old 
English windoge, windohe, and windowe. It is 
curious that in Gothic a window is called augadauro, 
in Anglo-Saxon, éagduru, i.e. eye-door. In island 
(which ought to be spelt iland), the first portion is 
neither egy nor eye, but a derivative of the same word 
which we have in O.H.G. aha, in Gothic adhwa, in 
Latin aqua, water. From this, as Fick suggested, 
would have been formed a Gothic *aguyd, watery, 
which dwindled down to *awyd and *aujé, and appears 
in O.H.G. as owwa, waterland, in medieval Latin as 
augia, in Modern German as Awe. In Old Norse the 
corresponding form occurs as ey, in Anglo-Saxon as éy 
and gg, and hence églond, tglond, tland, and by 
mistake island. 

What can be more tempting than to derive ‘on 


* Grimm, Deutsche Grammatih, ii. pp. 193, 421, 
Aa 2 


356 CHAPTER VI. 


the whole’ from the Greek kath hélon, from which 
Catholic?* Buttmann, in his Lemwilogus, has no 
misgivings whatever as to the identity of the Greek 
hélos and the English hale and whole and wholesome. 
At present, a mere reference to ‘Grimm’s Law’ enables 
any tyro in etymology to reject this identification as 
impossible. First of all, whole, in the sense of sound, 
is really the same word as hale,? the former belong- 
ing to the North, the latter to the South. They both 
come from A.S. Now, an initial aspirate in Anglo- 
Saxon or Gothic presupposes a tenuis in Greek, and 
the az in Gothic, and the @ in Anglo-Saxon point 
to an original ai. Hence if the same word existed 
in Greek, it could only have been koilos, not hédlos. 
In hélos the asper points to an original s in Sanskrit 
and Latin, and hdlos has therefore been rightly identi- 
fied with Sanskrit sarva and Latin salyus and sollus, 
in sollers, sollemnis, solliferreus, &e. 

There is perhaps no etymology so generally ac- 
quiesced in as that which derives God from good. 
In Danish good is god, but the identity of sound 
between the English God and the Danish god is 
merely accidental; the two words are distinct, and 
are kept distinct in every dialect of the Teutonic 
family. As in English we have God and good, we 
have in Anglo-Saxon God and géd; in Gothic Guth 
and géd-s; in Old High-German, Cot and cuot; in 
German, Gott and gut; in Danish, Gud and god; in 
Dutch, God and goed. Though it is impossible to 


* Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, i. 774, seg. ‘Sollum Osce totum et 
solidum significat.’—Festus, 
* Grimm, Deutsche Grammatikh, i. pp. 389, 394. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 357 


give a satisfactory etymology of either God or good, 
it is clear that two words which thus run parallel 
in all these dialects without ever meeting, cannot be 
traced back to one central point. God was most 
likely an old heathen name of the Deity, and for 
such a name the supposed etymological meaning of 
good would be far too modern, too abstract, too 
Christian. In the Old Norse, God is actually found 
in the sense of a graven image, an idol, and is then 
used as a neuter, whereas, in the same language, 
Gud, as a masculine, means God. When, after their 
conversion to Christianity, the Teutonic races used 
God as the name of the true God, in the same manner 
as the Romanic nations retained their old heathen 
word Deus, we find that in Old High-German a new 
word was formed for false gods or idols. They were 
called apcot, as if ex-gods. The Modern German 
word for idol, Gétze, is, according to Grimm, a modi- 
fied form of God,* and the compound Oelgétze, which 
is used in the same sense, seems actually to point 
back to ancient stone idols, before which, in the days 
of old, lamps were lighted and incense burned. 
Luther, in translating the passage of Deuteronomy, 
‘And ye shall hew down the graven images of their 
gods,’ uses the expression, ‘die Gétzen ihrer QGétter’ 
What thus happens in different dialects may 


* In the language of the gipsies, devel, meaning God, is connected 
with Sanskrit deva. Kuhn, Bettriige, i. p.147. Pott, Die Zigeuner, 
He po11: 

2 Grimm, Deutsche Grammattk, iii. p. 694. Others have derived 
Gétze from géz, the modern German Guss, ein Gussbild, a cast or molten 
image, or géz-opfer, libation ; but the transition from géz to Gotze has 
not been accounted for. 


Biel gue CHAPTER VI. 


happen also in one and the same language; and 
this leads us to the consideration of our fourth and 
last proposition. 


4. Different Words may take the same Form in one 
and the same Language. 


The same causes which make words which are 
perfectly distinct in their origin to assume the same, 
or very nearly the same, sound in English and German, 
may produce asimilar convergence between two words 
in one and the same language. Nay, the chances are, 
if we take into account the peculiarities of pronun- 
ciation and grammar in each dialect, that perfect 
identity of sound between two words, differing in 
origin, will occur more frequently in one and the 
same than in different dialects. It would seem to 
follow, also, that these cases of verbal convergence 
are more frequent in modern than in ancient lan- 
guages; for it is only by a constant process of 
phonetic corruption, by a constant wearing off of the 
sharp edges of words, that this curious assimilation 
can be explained. Many words in Latin differ by 
their terminations only; these terminations were 
generally omitted in the modern Romanic dialects, 
and the result is, that these words are no longer 
distinguishable in sound. Thus novus in Latin 
means new; novem, nine; the terminations being 
dropped, both become in French neuf. Suwum, his, 
is pronounced in French son; sonus, sownd, is re- 
duced to the same form. In the same manner twwm, 
thine, and tonus, tone, become ton. The French feu, 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 359 


fire, is the Latin focus; feu, in the sense of late, is 
not exactly Latin—at least, it is derived from Latin 
in the most barbarous way. In the same manner as 
we find in Spanish somos, sois, son, where sots stands 
ungrammatically for Latin estis; as in the same lan- 
guage a gerund siendo is formed which would seem 
to point to a barbarous Latin form, essendo, so a past 
participle fuztus may have been derived from the 
Latin fuere or fore, to be, from which fui, fuam, 
forem, futurus, &e., and this may have given rise to 
the French few, late. We find both few la reine and 
la fewe reine. Brachet, however, explains few as 
fatutus, fated. 

It sometimes happens that three Latin words are 
absorbed into one French sound. The sound of mer 
conveys in French three distinct meanings ; it means 
sea, mother, and mayor. Suppose that French had 
never been written down, and had to be reduced to 
writing for the first time by missionaries sent to Paris 
from New Zealand, would not mer, in their dictionary 
of the French language, be put down with three dis- 
tinct meanings, meanings having no more in com- 
mon than the explanations given in some of our old 
Greek and Latin dictionaries? It is no doubt one 
of the advantages of the historical system of spelling 
that the French are able to distinguish between la 
mer, mare, le maire, major, la mére, mater; yet if 
these words produce no confusion in the course of a 
rapid conversation, they would hardly be more per- 
plexing in reading, even though written phonetically. 

There are instances where four and five words, all 
of Latin origin, have dwindled away into one French 


360 CHAPTER VI. 


term. Ver, the worm, is Latin vermis; vers, a verse, 
is Latin versus ; verre, a glass, is Latin vitrum ; vert, 
green, is Latin viridis; vair, fur, is Latin varius. 
Nor is there much difference in pronunciation be- 
tween the French maz, the month of May, the Latin 
majus; mais, but, the Latin magis; mes, the plural 
of my, Latin mez; and la mae, a trough, the Latin 
magis, late Latin niagida, the Greek magés, magtdos, 
a kneading-trough ; or between sang, blood, sanguis ; 
cent, a hundred, centwm; sans, without, sine; sent, 
he feels, sentit; s’en, in il se’en va, inde. 

Wherever the spelling is the same, as it is, for 
instance, in ower, to praise, and lower, to let, attempts 
have not been wanting to show that the second 
meaning was derived from the first; that lower, for 
instance, was used in the sense of letting, because you 
have to praise your lodgings before you can let them. 
Thus jin, fine, was connected with fin, the end, 
because the end occasionally expresses the smallest 
point of an object. Now, in the first instance, both 
louer, to let, and louer, to praise, are derived from 
Latin; the one is laudare, the other locare. In the 


other instance we have to mark a second cause of - 


verbal confusion in French. Two words, the one 
derived from a Latin, the other from a German source, 
met on the neutral soil of France, and, after being 
divested of their national dress, ceased to be oe 
tinguishable from each other. 

There are cases, however, where F rench, Italian, and 
Spanish words, though apparently invested with two 
quite heterogeneous meanings, must nevertheless be 
referred to one and the same original. Voler, to fly, is 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 561 


clearly the Latin volare; but voler, to steal, would seem 
at first sight to require a different etymology. There 
is, however, no simple word, whether in Latin, or 
Celtic, or Greek, or German, from which voler, to steal, 
could be derived. Now, as we observed that the same 
Latin word branched off into two distinet French 
words by a gradual change of pronunciation, we must 
here admit a similar bifurcation, brought on by a 
gradual change of meaning. It would not, of course, 
be satisfactory to have recourse to a mere gratuitous 
assumption, and to say that a thief was called volator, 
a flyer, because he flew away like a bird from his 
pursuers. But Professor Diez has shown that, in Old 
French, to steal is embler, which is the medizeval Latin 
imbulare, used, for instance, in the Lex Salica. This 
umbulare is the genuine Latin involare, which is used 
in Latin of birds flying down,! of men and women 
flying at each other in a rage,? of soldiers dashing 
upon an enemy,’ and of thieves pouncing upon a 
thing not their own. The same involure is used in 
Italian in the sense of stealing, and in the Florentine 
dialect it is pronounced imbolare, like the French 
embler, From embler we have d’emblée, suddenly. 
It was this involare, with the sense of seizing, which 


* “Neque enim debent (aves) ipsis nidis involare ; ne, dum adsiliunt, 
pedibus ova confringant.’—Ool. 8, 3, 5. 

* “Vix me contineo, quin involem in capillum, monstrum.’—Ter. 
Eun. 5, 2, 20. 

* * Adeoque improvisi castra involavere.’—Tac. H. 4, 33. 

* “Remitte pallium mihi meum quod involasti.’—Cat. 25,6. These 
passages are taken from White and Riddle’s Latin-English Dictionary, 
a work which deserves credit for the careful and thoughtful manner 
in which the meanings of each word are arranged and built up archi- 
tecturally, story on story, 


362 CHAPTER VI. 


suggested the modern French voler, to steal. Vole, 
therefore, meant originally, not to fly away, but to fly 
upon, just as the Latin impetus, assault, is derived 
from the root pat, to fly, in Sanskrit, from which we 
derived penna and feather. A complete dictionary of 
words of this kind in French has been published by 
M. E. Zlatagorskoi, under the title, Hssai d’un Diction- 
naire des Homonymes de la Langue francaise (Leipzig, 
1862), and a similar dictionary might be composed 
in English. For here, too, we find not only Romanic 
words differing in origin and becoming identical in 
form, but Saxon words likewise; nay, not unfre- 
quently we meet with words of Saxon origin which 
have become outwardly identical with words of Ro- 
manic origin. For instance :— 


I. toblow . AS. bldwan, the wind blows 
to blow . A.S. bléwan, the flower blows 
to cleave . A.S. cleofian, to stick 
to cleave. A.S. cléofan, to sunder 
ahawk . AS. heafoc, a bird; German Habicht 


to hawk . to offer for sale; German hiken 

tolast . A.S. geléstan, to endure 

last . . AAS. datost, latest 

last . . AS. hlest, burden 

last . . A.S. dést, mould for making shoes 

tolie. . AS. licgan, to repose 

tolie. . AS. léogan, to speak untruth 

ear. . AS. éare, the ear; Lat. auris 

ear . . AS. éar, the ear of corn; Gothic ahs; 


German Ahre 


II. count. . Latin comes 
to count . Latin computare 
to repair. Latin reparare 
to repair Latin repatriare 
tense. . Latin tempus 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 363 


tense. . Latin tensus 

vice . . Latin vitium 

vice . . Latin vice 

Ill. corn . . AS. corn, in the fields 

corn . . Latin cornu, on the feet 

sage . . Latin salvia, French sauge, AS. salwiga: 
German salwey, a plant 

sage . . Latin sapius 

tosee. . AS. séon 

see. . . Latin sedes 

scale . . AS. scalu, of a balance 

scale . . A.S. scalu, of a fish 

scale . . Latin scala, steps 

sound. . A.S. gesund, hale 

sound. . A.S. sund, of the sea 

sound. . Latin sonus, tone 

sound. . Latin subundare, to dive.' 


Although, as I said before, the number of these 
equivocal words will increase with the progress of 
phonetic corruption, yet they exist likewise in what 
we are accustomed to call ancient languages. There 
is not one of these languages so ancient as not to dis- 
close to the eye of an accurate observer a distant past. 
In Latin, in Greek, and even in Sanskrit, phonetic 
corruption has been at work, smoothing the primitive 
asperity of language, and now and then producing 
exactly the same effects which we have just been 
watching in French and English. Thus, Latin est is 
not only the Sanskrit asti, the Greek esti, but it like- 
wise stands for Latin edit, he eats. As ist in German 
has equally these two meanings, though they are 


* Large numbers of similar words in Matzner, Englische Gram- 
matik,i.p.187; Koch, Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache, 
i. p. 228. 


364 CHAPTER VI. 


kept distinct by a difference of spelling, elaborate 
attempts have been made to prove that the auxiliary 
verb was derived from a verb which originally meant 
to eat—eating being supposed to have been the most 
natural assertion of our existence. 

The Greek ids means both arrow and poison; and 
here again attempts were made to derive either arrow 
from poison, or poison from arrow. Though these 
two words occur in the most ancient Greek, they are 
nevertheless each of them secondary modifications of 
two originally distinct words. This can be seen by 
reference to Sanskrit, where arrow is ishu, whereas 
poison is visha, Latin virus. It is through the in- 
fluence of two phonetic laws peculiar to the Greek 
language—the one allowing the dropping of a sibilant 
between two vowels, the other the elision of the initial 
v, the so-called digamma—that ishu and visha 
converged towards the Greek 2¢s. 

There are three roots in Sanskrit which in Greek 
assume one and the same form, and would be almost 
undistinguishable except for the light which is thrown 
upon them from cognate idioms. Nah, in Sanskrit, 
means to bind, to join together; snu, in Sanskrit, 
means to flow, or to swim; nas, in Sanskrit, means 
to come. These three roots assume in Greek one and 
the same form, 70. 

Né, fut. nésd (the Sanskrit NAH), means to spin, 
originally to join together; it is the German ndhen, 
(O.H.G. ndan), to sew, Latin, nere. Here we have 
_ only to observe in Greek the absence of the final h 


* The coincidence of régov, a bow, and rofixdr, poison for smearing 
arrows (hence intoxication), is curious. 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 365 


in Sanskrit nah, which reappears, however, in the 
Greek verb néthd, I spin; and the former existence 
of which can be discovered in Latin also, where the 
c of necto points to the original guttural h. 
SNU, snauti, to run, appears in Greek as néo. 
This néo stands for snefo. SS is elided as in mikrés 
for smikrés, and the digamma disappears, as usual, 
between two vowels. It reappears, however, as soon 
as it stands no longer in this position. Hence fut. 
netsomar, aor. éneusa. From this root, or rather from 
the still simpler and more primitive root nu, the 
Aryan languages derived their words for ship, origi- 
nally the swimmer; Sanskrit naus, navas; Greek 
nats, neds; Latin navis. Secondary forms of nu or 
Snu are the Sanskrit causative sn4vayati, corre- 
sponding to the Latin nare, which grows again into 
natare. By the addition of a guttural we receive the 
Greek nécho, I swim, from which nésos, an island, and 
Ndwxos, the island. The German Nachen, too, shows 
the same tendency to replace the final v by a guttural. 
The third root is the Sanskrit nas, to come, the 
Vedic nasati. Here we have only to apply the Greek 
euphonic law, which necessitates the elision of an s 
between two vowels; and, as our former rule with 
regard to the ‘digamma reduced nefo to né, this will 
reduce the original nésd to the same ned. Again, as 
in our former instance, the removal of the cause re- 
moved the effect, the digamma reappearing whenever 
it was followed by a consonant, so in this instance the 
8 rises again to the surface when it is followed by 


* Cf. Mehlhorn, § 54, Also opdddw, fallo; opédyyos, fungus. Festus 
mentions in Latin, smitto and mitto, stritavus and tritavus.. 


366 CHAPTER VI. 


a consonant, as we see in “dstos, the return, from 
né-esthar. 

And here, in discussing words which, though ori- 
ginally distinct in origin and meaning, have in the 
course of time become identical or nearly identical in 
sound, I ought not to pass over in silence the name of 
a scholar who, though best known in the annals of the 
physical sciences, deserves an honourable place in the 
history of the Science of Language also. Roger Bacon’s 
views on language and etymology are strangely in 
advance of his age. He called etymology the tale of 
truth,' and he was probably the first who conceived 
the idea of a Comparative Grammar. He uses the 
strongest language against those who proposed deri- 
vations of words in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew without 
a due regard to the history of these languages. 
‘Brito, he says, ‘dares to derive Gehenna from the 
Greek ge, earth, and ennos, deep, though Gehenna is a 
Hebrew word, and cannot have its origin in Greek.” 
As an instance of words becoming identical in the 
course of time, he quotes kenon as used in many 
medizeval compounds. In cenotaph, an empty tomb, 
ceno represents the Greek xevés, empty. In cenobite, 
one of a religious order living in a convent, ceno is 
the Greek xowds, common. In encema, festivals kept 


* Roger Bacon, Compendium Studii, cap. 7 (ed. Brewer, p, 449): 
‘quoniam etymologia est sermo vel ratio veritatis.’ Cicero rendered 
etymology by veriloquium. 

2I.c. cap. 7, p. 450: § Brito quidem indignissimus auctoritate, 
pluries redit in vitium de quo reprehendit Hugutionem et Papiam, 
Nam cum dicit quod Gehenna dicitur a ge, quod est terra, et ennos, 
quod est profundum, Hebreeum vocabulum docet oriri ex Greco; quia 
ge pro terra est Grecum, et gehenna est Hebreeum,’ 


ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ETYMOLOGY. 367 


in commemoration of the foundation of churches, &c., 
cenia answers to the Greek xaivéds, new, these festivals 
being intended as renewals of the memory of pious 
founders.': » Surely this does honour to the thirteenth 
century ! 

If, then, we have established that sound etymology 
has nothing to do with sound, what other method is 
to be followed in order to prove the derivation of a 
word to be true and trustworthy? Our answer is, We 
must discover the laws which regulate the changes of 
letters. If it were by mere accident that the ancient 
word for tear, derived from the root as, to be sharp, 
or das, to bite, took the form asru in Sanskrit, dszara 
in Lithuanian, dékry in Greek, lacruma in Sanskrit, 
tagr in Gothic,’a scientific treatment of etymology 
would be an impossibility. But this is not the case. 
In spite of the apparent dissimilarity of the words for 
tear in English and French, there is not an inch of 
ground between these two extremes, tear and larme, 
that cannot be bridged over by Comparative Philo- 
logy. We believe therefore, until the contrary has 


* L. ¢. cap. 7, p. 457; ‘Similiter multa falsa dicuntur cum istis 
nominibus, cenobiwm, cenodoxia, encenia, cinomia, scenophagia, et 
hujusmodi similia. Et est error in simplicibus et compositis, et igno- 
rantia horribilis. Propter quod diligenter considerandum est quod 
multa istorum dicuntur a xkev@ Greco, sed non omnia. Et sciendum 
quod cenon, apud nos prolatum uno modo, scribitur apud Grecos tribus 
modis. Primo per ¢ breve, sicut enon, et sic est inane seu vacuum, a 
quo cenodowia, que est vana gloria. ,..Secundo modo scribitur per 
diphthongum ex alpha et iota, sicut kainon, et tunc idem est quod 
novum ; unde encenia, quod est innovatio vel dedicatio, vel nova festa 
et dedicationes ecclesiarum. . . . Tertio modo scribitur per diphthongum 
ex omicron et iota, sicut koinos.... Unde dicunt cenon, a quo epice- 
num, communis generis. ... Item a cenon, quod est commune, et bios, 
quod est vita, dicitur cenobium, et cenobite, quasi communiter viventes.’ 


368 CHAPTER VI. 


been proved, that there is law and order in the 
growth of language, as in the growth of any other 
production of nature, and that the changes which we 
observe in the history of human speech are not the 
result of chance, but are constrained by general and 
ascertainable laws. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 


True meaning of Elements. 


E saw in a former chapter how, if we dissolve 

words into their most primitive elements, we 

arrive, not at letters, but at roots. Elements must be 

substances which, if combined, are sufficient to account 

for things as they really are. But it is quite clear 

that we might shake our letters together ad infini- 
tum and yet never arrive at real words. 

It was a favourite idea of ancient philosophers to 
compare the atoms of nature with letters. Epicurus is 
reported to have said that ‘the atoms come together 
in different order and position, like the letters which, 
though they are few, yet, by being shaken together 
in different ways, produce innumerable words. ! 

Aristotle, also, in his Metaphysics, when speaking 
of Leucippus and Democritus, illustrates the different 
effects produced by the same elements by a reference 
to letters, ‘A,’ he says, ‘ differs from N by its shape ; 
AN from NA by the order of the letters ; Z from N 
by its position.’ 2 

* Lactantius, Divin. Inst. lib, 3, ¢. 19: * Vario, inquit (Epicurus), 
ordine ac positione conveniunt atomi sicut literze, quae cum sint pauce, 
varie tamen collocate innumerabilia verba conficiunt,’ 


* Metaph. i. 4,11: Atagpéper yap 7o peév A Tod N oxnpari, 7d 58 AN 
Tou NA rdge, 70 5¢ Z TOO N Oéon. 


TT Bb 


370 CHAPTER VII. 


It is true, no doubt, that by putting the twenty- 
three or twenty-four letters together in every possible 
variety, we might produce every word that has ever 
been used in any language of the world. The number 
of these words, taking twenty-three letters as the 
basis, would be 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000 ; or, 
if we take twenty-four letters, 620,448,401,733,239, 
439,360,000.1 But even then these millions, billions, 
and trillions of sounds would not be words, for they 
would lack the most important ingredient, that which 
makes a word to be a word, namely, the different ideas 
which give life to them, and which are expressed ae 
PSeatinns in different languages. 


Element (Aristotle says) we call that of which anything con- 
sists, as of its first substance, this being as to form indivisible ; 
as, for instance, the elements of language (the letters) of which 
language is composed, and into which as its last component 
parts, it can be dissolved ; while they, the letters, can no longer 
be dissolved into sounds different in form; but if they are 
ssolved, the parts are homogeneous, as a part of water is 
water ; but not so the parts of a syllable.’ 


If here we take phdné as voice, not as language, 
there would be nothing to object to in Aristotle’s rea- 
soning. The voice, as such, may be dissolved into 


1 Cf Leibniz, De Arie combinatoria, Opp. t. ii. pp. 387-8, ed. Dutens ; 
Pott, Htym. Forsch. ii. p. 9. Plutarch, Symposiace questiones, viii. 9, 
3: Hevoxparns 5¢ tov tv avAdaBbav -apiOpor, dv TA oToLXela peyvipeva 
mpos GAAnda Tapexer, pupiddav awepnvey eixoodms Kal pupidis pupiov. 
Xenocrates was the pupil of Plato, and for twenty-five years president 
of the Academy. See First Volume, p. 377. 

* Metaph. iv. 3: oroxetoy A€yerat e oF TUyKELTAL MpwTov évuTap- 
XovTos, ddiapérou TH eidec [eis Erepoy cidos], ofov mavans oroxeia e€ dv 
avyKeta  pwvy Kal eis A Siacpetra Ecxata, éxeiva 5 pnkér eis GAAas 
povas érépas TH €tder adT@v' GdAA Kav SiarpHtat, TA pdpia dpoeidh, ofov 
Ydaros TO pdprov VEwp, GAA’ ov THs cvAAaBFs. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. SYA! 


vowels and consonants, as its primal elements. But 
not so speech. Speech is pre-eminently significant 
sound, and if we look for the elements of speech, we 
cannot on a sudden drop one of its two characteristic 
qualities, either its audibility or its significancy. Now 
letters as such are not significant; a, b, c, d, mean 
nothing, either by themselves or if put together. The 
only word that is formed of mere letters is ‘Alphabet’ 
(6 dApdByros), the English ABC ; but even here it is 
not the sounds, but the names of the letters, that form 
the word. One other word has been supposed to have 
the same merely alphabetical origin, namely, the Latin 
elementum. As elementa is used in Latin for the ABC, 
it has been supposed, though I doubt whether in real 
earnest, that it was formed from the three letters, 
l,m, 1. 


Etymology of Stoicheion. 


The etymological meaning of elementa is by no 
means clear, nor has the Greek stoicheion, which in 
Latin is rendered by elementum, as yet been satis- 
factorily explained. We are told that stoicheton is a 
diminutive form of stotchos, a small upright rod or 
post, especially the gnomon of the sundial, or the 
shadow thrown by it; and under stoichos we find the 
meaning of a row, a line of poles with hunting nets, 
and are informed that the word is the same as stichos, 
line, and stdéchos, aim. How the radical vowel can 
change from 7 to 0, and 02, is not explained. 

The question 1s, why were the elements, or the com- 
ponent primary parts of things, called stovcheza by the 
Greeks? It is a word which has had a long history, 

Bb2 


372 CHAPTER VII. 


and has passed from Greece to almost every part of 
the civilised world, and deserves, therefore, some 
attention at the hand of the etymological genealogist. 
Stotchos, from which stoicheion, means a row or file, 
like sttx and stiches in Homer. The suffix eios is the 
same as the Latin ecus, and expresses what belongs to 
or has the quality of something. Therefore, as sto%chos 
means a row, stoicheion would be what belongs to or 
constitutes a row. It is not possible to connect these 
words with stdéchos, aim, either in form or meaning. 
Roots with ¢ are liable to a regular change of 7 into o# 
or é?, but not into 0. Thus the root lip, which appears 
in élipon, assumes the forms lefpo and léloipa, and 
the same scale of vowel-changes may be observed in 

liph, aletpho, éloipha, and 

pth, pettho, pépoitha. 

Hence stotchos presupposes a root stich, and this 
root would account in Greek for the following deriva- 
tions :— 

1, sttx, gen. stichds, a row, a line of soldiers. 

2, stichos, a row, a line; distich, a couplet. 

3, stetcho, éstichon, to march in order, step by step ; 
to mount. | 

4, stoichos, a row, a file; stoichein, to march in a 
line. 


In German, the same root yields steigen, to step, to 
mount ; in Gothie, steigan; and in Sanskrit we find 
stigh, to mount. 

Quite a different root is presupposed by stédchos. 
As témos points to a root tam (témno, éamon), or 
bélos to a root bal (bélos, ébalon), stéchos points to a 


ELEMENTS ON LANGUAGE. 370 


root stach. This root does not exist in Greek in the 
form of a verb, and has left behind in the classical 
language this one formation only, stdchos, mark, point, 
aim, whence stochdzomat, I point, I aim, and similar 
derivatives. In Gothic, a similar root exists in the 
verb stiggan or staggan,! the English to sting. 

A third root, closely allied with, yet distinct from, 
stach, has been more prolific in the classical languages, 
namely, stig, to stick.2 From it we have stizo, éstig- 
mat, I prick ; in Latin, in-stigare, stimulus, and stilus 
(for stiglus, like palus for paglus); Gothic, stikan, 
intrans. to stick, and stik-s, a point. 

The result at which we thus arrive is that stoicheton 
has no connection with stdéchos; and hence that it can- 
not, as the dictionaries tell us, have started from the 
primary meaning of a small upright rod or pole stuck 
in the ground, or of the gnomon of the sundial. Where 
storcheion (as in dexdrovv orouyelov i.e. noon) is used 
with reference to the sundial, it means the lines of the 
shadow following each other in regular succession ; the 
radii, in fact, which constitute the complete series of 
hours described by the sun’s daily course. And this 


gives us the key to stotcheion, in the sense of elements. a4 


Stoichera are the degrees or steps from one end to the 
other, the constituent parts of a whole, forming a com- 
plete series, whether as hours, or letters, or numbers, 
or parts of speech, or physical elements, provided 
always that such elements are held together by a SYS- 


1 See Ulfilas, Watth. v. 29. 

* Grimm, Deutsche Sprache, p. 853; Goth. stiggan, stagg ; O.H.G. 
stingan; A.S. stingan, stang, stungon. Goth. stikan, stak, stékum ; 
0.H.G. stéchan, stah, stachum; A.S. stican. 


374 CHAPTER VII. 


tematic order. This is the only sense in which Aristotle 
and his predecessors could have used the word for 
ordinary and for technical purposes ; and it corresponds 
with the explanation proposed by no less an authority 
than Dionysius Thrax. The first grammarian of 
Greece gives the following etymology of stotcheta in 
the sense of letters ($ 7): '—‘ The same are also called 
stoicheta, because they have a certain order and ar- 
rangement.’ ” 


Etymology of Elementum. 


Why the Romans, who probably became for the 
first time acquainted with the idea of elements 
through their intercourse with Greek philosophers 
and grammarians, should have translated stoicheta by 
elementa is less clear. In the sense of physical ele- 
ments, the early Greek philosophers used rizomata, 
roots, in preference to stovcheza, and whether elementa 
stands for alimenta, in the sense of feeders, or for 
olementa, in the sense of sources of growth (cf. adolere, 
-sub-oles, &c.),? it may have been intended originally 
as a rendering of rizomata. 


1 Td 6@ avra Kat oroxeia Kadreirar bid 7d Exe oTotydy Tia Kal 
Tae. 

? The explanation here suggested of stoicheton is confirmed by some 
remarks of Professor Pott, in the second volume of his Htymologische 
Forschungen, p. 191, 1861. The same author suggests a derivation of 
elementum from li, solvere, with the proposition é.—J. c. p. 198. 

* Corssen, Aussprache, 2nd ed. i. p. 531. Leo Meyer, in Bezzen- 
berger’s Beitrdge, ii. p. 86. From the root AL, meaning intransitively 
to grow, transitively to make grow, to nourish, we have in Latin alo, 
to nourish; alumnus, nourished, nursling ; almus, nourishing, genial ; 
alimentum, co-alescere, ad-olescere, sub-olescere, proles, altus, adultus, 
&e. In elementum the vowels are irregular, but find some analogy in 
bene and bonus, velim and volo. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 375 


Roots as ultimate Facis. 


From an historical point of view, letters can never 
be considered as the stoicheia or rizomata of language. 
There may be roots consisting of one vowel, such as 7, 
to go, in Sanskrit, or *%, one, in Chinese; but this 
would only show that a root may be a letter, not that 
a letter may be a root. If we attempted to divide 
roots like Sanskrit ki, to collect, or the Chinese tchz, 
many, into tch and 2, we should have left the pre- 
eincts of language, and entered upon the science of 
phonetics. 

In the science of language we must accept roots 
simply as ultimate facts, leaving to the physiologist 
and the psychologist the question as to the possible 
sympathetic or reflective action of the five organs of sen- 
suous perception upon the motory nerves of the organs 
of speech. It was for that reason that I chose a negative 
rather than a positive definition of roots, stating ! 
that, for my own immediate purposes, I called root 
or radical whatever, in the words of any language or 
family of languages, cannot be reduced to a simpler 
or more original form. 


Conception of Root in India. 


It has been pointed out, however, with great logical 
acuteness, that if this definition were true, roots would 
be mere abstractions, and as such unfit to explain the 
realities of language. Now, it is perfectly true that, 
from one point of view, a root may be considered as 
a mere abstraction. A root is a cause, and every 


1 Vol. i. p. 358. 


376 CHAPTER VII. 


cause, in the logical acceptation of the word, is an 
abstraction. As a cause it can claim no reality, no 
vulgar reality—if we call real that only which can 
become the object of sensuous perception. In real 
language, we never hear a root; we only meet with 
their effects, namely, with words, whether nouns, ad- 
jectives, verbs, or particles. This is the view which 
the native grammarians of India have taken of San- 
skrit roots; and they have taken the greatest pains to 
show that a root, as such, can never emerge to the 
surface of real speech ; that there it is always a word, 
an effect, a substance clothed in the garment of gram- 
matical derivatives. The Hindus call a root dhatu, 
which is derived from the root dha,! to support or 
nourish. They apply the same word to their five 
elements, which shows that, like the Greeks, they 
looked upon these elements (earth, water, fire, air, 
ether), and upon the elements of language, as the 
supporters and feeders of real things and real words. 
It is known that, in the fourth century s.c., the 
Hindus possessed complete lists, not only of their 
roots, but likewise of all the formative elements, 
which, by being attached to them, raise the roots into 
real words. 

Thus from a root vid, to know, they would form by 
ineans of the suffix ghaii,? Veda, i.e. knowledge; by 
means of the suffix trik, vettr?, a knower, Greek 
histor and istor. Again, by affixing to the root cer- 


* Unadi Sttras, i. 70: dudhafi dharanaposhanayoh. 
_? In ghaii and tri&, the letters gh, fi, and & are technical, and indi- 
cate certain changes that must take place when a and tri are added to 
a root. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. O17 


tain verbal derivatives, they would arrive at vedmi, 
I know, viveda, I have known, or veda, I know. 
Besides these derivatives, however, we likewise find 
in Sanskrit the mere vid, used, particularly in com- 
pounds, in the sense of knowing; for instance, 
dharma-vid, a knower of the law. Here then the 
root itself might seem to appear as a word. But 
such is the logical consistency of Sanskrit oramma- 
rians, that they have actually imagined a class of 
derivative suffixes, the object of which is to be added 
to a root for the sole purpose of being rejected again. 
Thus only could the logical conscience of PAnini 
be satisfied... When we should say that a root is 
used as a noun without any change except those that 
are necessitated by phonetic laws (as, for instance, 
dharmavit, instead of dharmavid), Panini Says 
(iii. 3, 68), that a suffix (namely, vit) is added to the 
root vid. But if we come to inquire what this suffix 
means, and why it is called vit, we find (vrs 67) 
that a lopa, i.e. a lopping off, is to carry away the 
v of vit; that the final ¢ is only meant to indicate 
certain phonetic changes that take place if a root ends 
in a nasal (vi. 4, 41); and that the vowel i serves 
merely to connect these two algebraic symbols. So 
that the suffix vit is in reality nought. This is cer- 
tainly strict logic, but it is rather cumbersome oram- 


7 In earlier works the meaning of dhatu is not yet so strictly de- 
fined. Inthe Pratisaikhya of the Rigveda, xii. 5, a noun is defined 
as that which signifies a being, a verb as that which signifies being, and 
as such the verb is identified with the root (Tan nama yenabhida- 
dhati sattvam, tad akhyatam yena bhavam, sa dhatuh). In 
the Nirukta, too, verbs with different verbal terminations are spoken 
ofasdhatus. Nighantu, i. 20. 


378 CHAPTER VII. 


mar, and, from an historical point of view, we are. 
justified in dropping these circumlocutions, and looking 
upon the root as outwardly identical with areal word. 


Different views of the Nature of Roots. 


With us, speaking inflectional and highly refined 
languages, roots are primarily what remains as the 
last residuum after a complete analysis of our own 
dialects, or of all the dialects that form together the 
great Aryan mass of speech. But if our analysis is 
properly made, what is to us a mere residuum must 
originally, in the natural course of events, have been 
a real germ; and these germinal forms would have 
answered every purpose in an early stage of language. 
We must not forget that there are languages which 
have remained in that germinal state, and in which 
there is to the present day no outward distinction be- 
tween a root and a word. In Chinese,! for instance, 
ly means to plough, a plough, and an ox, ie. a 
plougher; t@ means to be great, greatness, greatly. 
Whether a word is intended as a noun, or a verb, or 
a particle, depends chiefly on the position which it 
occupies in a sentence. In the Polynesian ? dialects, 
almost every verb may, without any change of form, 
be used as a noun or an adjective. Whether it is 
meant for the one or the other must be learnt from 
certain particles, which are called particles of affirma- 
tion (kua), and the particles of the agent (ko). In 
Egyptian, as Bunsen states, there is no formal distine- 
tion between noun, verb, adjective, and particle, and 


1 Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, § 123. 
2 Cf. Hale, l.c. p. 263. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 379 


a word like an‘h might mean life, to live, living, 
lively." What does this show? I think it shows 
that there was a stage in the growth of language, in 
which that sharp distinction which we make between 
the different parts of speech had not yet been fixed, 
and when even that fundamental distinction between 
subject and predicate, on which all the parts of speech 
are based, had not yet been realised in its fulness, 
and had not yet received a corresponding outward 
expression. : 

A slightly different view is propounded by Professor 
Pott, when he says: ‘Roots, it should be observed, 
as such, lack the stamp of words, and therefore their 
real value in the currency of speech. There is no 
inward necessity why they should first have entered 
into the reality of language, naked and formless ; it 
suffices, that, unpronounced, they fluttered before the 
soul like small images, continually clothed in the 
mouth, now with this, now with that form, and sur- 
rendered to the air to be drafted off in hundred-fold 
cases and combinations.’ ? 

It might be said, that in Chinese, as soon as a root is 
pronounced—as soon as it forms part of a sentence—it 
ceases to be a root, and is either a subject or a pre- 
dicate, or, to use grammatical language, a noun or a 
verb. Yet a Chinese would hardly understand this 
distinction. To him, the sound ta, even when pro- 
nounced, is a mere root; it is neither noun nor verb, 
distinctions which, in the form in which we conceive 
them, have no existence at all to a Chinese. If to ta 


* Bunsen’s Aegypten, i. 324. 
* Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 95, 


380 CHAPTER VII. 


we add fu, man, and when we put fw first and ta last, 
then, no doubt, fw is the subject, and ta the predicate, 
or, as our grammarians would say, fu is a noun, and ta 
a verb; fu ta would mean, ‘the man is great.’ But if 
we said ta fu, ta would be an adjective, and the phrase 
would mean ‘agreat man. There isin Chinese no real 
distinction between ta, potentially a noun, an adjective, 
a verb, an adverb, and ta in fw ta, used actually as an 
adjective or verb. 
As the growth of language and the growth of the 
mind are only two aspects of the same process, it is 
dificult for us to think in Chinese, or in any radical 
language, without transferring to it our own categories 
of thought. But if we watch the language of a child, 
which is in reality Chinese spoken in English, we see 
that there is a form of thought, and of language, per- 
fectly rational and intelligible to those who have 
studied it, in which, nevertheless, the distinction be- 
tween noun and verb, nay, between subject and pre- 
dicate, is not yet realised. If a child says Up, that 
up is, to his mind, noun, verb, adjective, all in one. 
It means, ‘I want to get up on my mother’s lap.’ If 
an English child says ta, that ta is both a noun, 
thanks, and a verb, I thank you. Nay, even if a 
child learns to speak grammatically, it does not yet 
think grammatically ; it seems, in speaking, to wear 
the garments of its parents, though it has not yet 
grown into them. A child says ‘I am hungry,’ with- 
out an idea that J is different from hungry, and that 
both are united by an auxiliary verb, which auxiliary 
verb again was a compound of a root as, and a per- 
sonal termination mi, giving us the Sanskrit asmi, 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE, 381 


Iam. A Chinese child would express exactly the 
same idea by one word, shi, to eat, or food, &e. The 
only difference would be that a Chinese child speaks 
the language of a child, an English child the language 
of aman. If then it is admitted that every inflec- 
tional language passed through a radical and an ag- 
glutinative stage, it seems to follow that, at one time 
or other, the constituent elements of inflectional lan- 
guages, namely, the roots, were to al] intents and 
purposes, real words, and used as such both in thought 
and speech. — 

Roots, therefore, are not such mere abstractions as 
they are sometimes Supposed to be, and unless we 
succeed in tracing each word in English, or in any 
inflectional language back to its root, we have not 
traced it back to its real origin. It is in this analysis 
of language that comparative philology has achieved 
its greatest triumphs, and has curbed that wild spirit 
of etymology which would handle words as if they 
had no past, no history, no origin. In tracing words 
back to their roots we must obey certain phonetic 
laws. If the vowel of a root is 2 or u, its derivatives 
will be different, from Sanskrit down to English, from 
what they would have been if that radical vowel had 
been a. If a root begins with a tenuis in Sanskrit, 
that tenuis, we know, will never be a tenuis in Gothic, 
but an aspirate; if a root begins with an aspirate in 
Sanskrit, that aspirate will never be an aspirate in 
Gothic, but a media; if a root begins with a media 
in Sanskrit, that media will not be a media in Gothic, 
but a tenuis. 


382 CHAPTER VII. 


Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh Theories. 


And this, better than anything else, will, I think, 
explain the strong objection which comparative phi- 
lologists feel to what I called the Bow-wow and the 
Pooh-pooh theories, names which I am sorry to see 
have given great offence, but in framing which, I 
can honestly say, I thought of Epicurus! rather 
than of living writers, and meant no offence to 
either. ‘Onomatopceic’ is neither an appropriate 
nor a pleasant word, and it was absolutely necessary 
to distinguish between two theories, the onomatopairc, 
which derives words from the sounds of animals 
and nature in general, as imitated by the framers 
of language, and the interjectional, which derives 
words not from the imitation of the interjections of 
others, but from the interjections themselves as wrung 
forth, almost against their will, from the framers of 
language. According to the former view, the origin 
of language was the result of a conscious act; accord- 
ing to the latter, of an involuntary instinct. I did 
not think that the weapons of ridicule were necessary 
to combat theories which, since the days of Epicurus, 
had so often been combated, and so often been de- 
fended. I may have erred in choosing terms which, 
while they expressed exactly what 1 wished to ex- 
press, sounded rather homely and undignified ; but I 
could not plead for the terms I had chosen a better 
excuse than the name now suggested by the sup- 


1 ‘Q yap “Enixovpos edeyev Ste ovx! émotnudvws ovTo OevTo TA OvO- 
pata, GAAA puawtGs Kwvovpevot, ws ot Bhocovres kat mralpoytes Kal puKo- 
pevor kal bAaKTODYTES Kal orevatovres.—Proclus, ad Plat. Orat. p. 9. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 383 


porters of the onomatopceic theory, which, I am told, 
is to be Imsonic, from im instead of imitation, and 
son instead of sonus, sound. 

That there is some analogy between the faculty 
of speech and the sounds which we utter in singing, 
laughing, crying, sobbing, sighing, moaning, scream- 
ing, whistling, and clicking, was known to Epicurus 
of old, and requires no proof. But does it require to 
be pointed out that even if the scream of a man who 
has his finger pinched should happen to be identically 
the same as the French hélas, that scream would be 
an effect, an involuntary effect of outward pressure, 
whereas an interjection like alas, hélas, Italian lasso, 
to say nothing of such words as. pain, suffering, 
agony, &c., is there by the free will of the speaker, 
meant for something, used with a purpose, chosen as 
a sion ? 

Again, that sounds can be rendered in language by 
sounds, and that each language possesses a large stock 
of words imitating the sounds given out by certain 

’ Another name proposed in order to avoid the vague term onomato- 
pete, is pathognomic. I subjoin an explanation of the term as given in 
Steinthal’s Zeitschrift fir Volkerpsychologie, i. p.420: ‘We call it the 
pathognomic principle, in order to avoid the word onomatopeic, with 
which, not only through Plato and the Stoics, so many misunderstand- 
ings are connected. In order to understand the principle rightly, we 
must remove not only every intention, every consciousness in the form- 
ation of words; but it should not be overlooked that the word is never 
an image, nor an imitation of the thing, nor of its representation. The 
likeness of word and meaning consists only in this—that the Gefiihlston 
(tone used metaphorically, as we speak of tone of colour), which the 
intuition of a thing calls forth in us, is about the same as that which is 
excited by the Sprachlaut (Lazarus, Leben der Seele, ii, p. 93; Zeit- 
schrift fiir Philos. u. phil. Kritik, Bd. 32, p. 212); for this tone, this 


temper of the mind, as excited by sensation or perception, may be what 
is alone effective in this reflex on the motory nerves.’ - 


384 CHAPTER VII. 


things, who would deny? And who would deny that 
some words, originally expressive of sound only, might 
be transferred to other things which have some analogy 
with sound ? 

But how are all things that do not appeal to the 
sense of hearing—how are the ideas of going, moving, 
standing, sinking, tasting, thinking, to be expressed ? 

I give the following as a specimen of what may be 
achieved by the advocates of ‘painting in sound,’ 
Hoovaioat is said in Hawaian to mean to testify ; and 
this, we are told, was the origin of the word :1— 


In uttering the 7 the breath is compressed into the smallest 
and seemingly swiftest current possible. It represents there- 
fore a swift, and what we may call a sharp movement. 

Of all the vowels o is that of which the sound goes farthest. 
We have it therefore in most words relating to distance, as in 
holo, lo, long, &c. 

In joining the two, the sense is modified by their position. 
If we write oi, it is ano going on with ani. This is exem- 
plified in o7, lame. Observe how a lame man advances. 
Standing on the sound limb, he puts the lame one leisurely out 
and sets it to the ground: this is the 0. But no sooner does it 
get there, and the weight of the body begin to rest on it, than, 
hastening to relieve it of the burden, he moves the other leg 
rapidly forward, lessening the pressure at the same time by 
relaxing every joint he can bend, and thus letting his body 
sink as far as possible ; this rapid sinking movement is the 7. 

Again, 07, a passing in advance, excellency. Here o is the 
general advance, 7 is the going ahead of some particular one. 

If, again, we write io, it is an 7 going on with an o. That 
is to say, it is a rapid and penetrating movement—i, and that 
movement long continued. Thus we have in Hawaian io, a 
chief’s forerunner. He would be a man rapid in his course— 
7; of good bottom—o. In Greek, ios, an arrow, and Jo, the 


* The Polynesian. Honolulu, 1862, 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 385 


goddess who went so fast and far. Hence io is anything that 
goes quite through, that is thorough, complete, real, true. 
like Burns, ‘facts are chiels that winna ding,’ that is, cannot 
be foreed out of their course. Hence io, flesh, real food, in 
distinction to bone, &c., and reality or fact, or truth generally. 

Ja is the pronoun that, analogous to Latin is, ea, id. Put- 
ting together these we have 0, ia, io—‘oh that is fact’ Prefix- 
ing the causative hoo, we have ‘make that to be fact;’ affix 
ai, completive of the action, and we have, ‘make that com- 
pletely out to be a fact,’ that is, ‘testify to its truth” 

It is to be remarked that the stress of the voice ig laid on 
the second i, the oia being pronounced very lightly, and that 
in Greek the i in ofomai, I believe, is always strongly accented, 
a mark of the contraction the word has suffered. 


Although the languages of Europe, with their well- 
established history, lend themselves less easily to 
such hallucinations, yet I could quote similar passages 
from French, German, and English etymologists. 
Dr. Bolza, in his Vocabolario Genetico-Etimologico 
(Vienna, 1852), tells us, among other things, that in 
Italian a@ expresses light, o redness, w darkness; and 
he continues, ‘Hcco probabilmente le tre note, che in 
fiamma, fuoco, e fumo, sono espresse dal mutamento 
della vocale, mentre la f esprime in tutti < tre il movi- 
mento dell’ aria’ (p. 61, note). And again we are 
told by him that one of the first sounds pronounced 
by children is m: hence mamma. The root of this is 
ma or am, which gives us amare, to love. On account 
of the movement of the lips, it likewise supplies the 
root of mangiare and masticare; and explains besides 
muto, dumb, muggire, to low, miagolare, to mew, and 
mormorvo, murmur. Now, even if amare could not 
be protected by the Sanskrit root am, to rush forward 
impetuously, we should have thought that mangiare 

ae Ce 


386 CHAPTER VII. 


and masticare would have been safe against onoma- 
topceic interference, the former being the Latin man- 
ducare, to chew, the latter the post-classical masticare, 
to chew. Manducare has a long history of its own. 
It descends from mandere, to chew, and mandere 
leads us back to the Sanskrit root mard, to grind, 
one of the numerous offshoots of the root mar, the 
history of which will be fully discussed in Chapter 
VIII. Mdtus has been well derived by Professor A. 
Weber (Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vi. p. 318) from the 
Sanskrit mt, to bind (Pan. vi. 4, 20), so that its 
original meaning would have been ‘tongue-bound.’ 
As to miagolare, to mew, we willingly hand it over 
to the onomatopeeic school. 

The onomatopceic theory goes very smoothly as 
long as it deals with cackling hens and quacking 
ducks; but round that poultry-yard there is a high 
wall, and we soon find that it is behind that wall 
that language really begins. 

Many names even of Foastinalty Homer particularly 
in languages which have not yet been analysed scienti- 
fically, have been explained as onomatopceic, which 
a more intimate acquaintance with the language 
clearly proves to be appellative. As a warning in 
that respect I may quote the remarks of Mr. J. 
Hammond Trumbull, in the Proceedings of the Ame- 
rican Oriental Society, 1868, p. xiii. :— 


In Dr. Wilson’s ‘Prehistoric Man’ (2nd ed. p. 56) is given 
a list of twenty-six names of animals which he regards as of 
onomatopoetic origin, and as illustrating the fact that ‘ primi- 
tives originating directly from the observation of natural sounds 
are not uncommon among the native root-words of the New 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 387 


World.’ This list has been used by Mr. Farrar (Chapters on 
Language, pp. 24-5) in support of his averment that, in savage 
vocabularies, ‘almost every name for an animal is a striking and 
obvious onomatopeeia.’ 

Considering our imperfect comprehension of the Algonkin 
dialects, we could not be expected to refute every assumed and 
doubtful onomatopeia by a true etymology. Of a part of the 
words in the list, it can only be said that their origin is not 
prima facie mimetic. Respecting others, the fact can be 
proved. Thus koo-koosh, ‘sow,’ is demonstrably derived, by an 
adaptation of the name for ‘porcupine,’ from a root signifying 
‘sharp,’ and it designates ‘a bad bristly or prickly animal.’ As 
to pe-zhew, ‘wild cat,’ forms of which are widely distributed, 
and used to denote various of the feline animals, there is a bare 
possibility that it may be imitative, but no more. These are 
the only names of quadrupeds in the list. Of the nineteen 
names of birds, four or five are presumably mimetic (including 
those of the owl and crow), six or seven possibly so, and the rest 
obviously derivative and significant. Shi-sheeb, ‘duck, like 
duck itself, comes from a root signifying ‘ dive.’ Pau-pau-say, 
‘the common spotted woodpecker,’ means ‘a spotted bird.’ 
Moosh-kah-oos, ‘bittern,’ denotes a frequenter of marshes. No- 
no-caus-ee, ‘ humming-bird’—a strange enough onomatopeeia ! 
—means ‘the exceedingly delicate creature.’ Of the asserted 
mimetic names for ‘ frog,’ one signifies ‘diver, and the other, as 
it belongs also to the toad, is not likely to be truly imitative. 
And so on. If only one-fourth of a list carefully gleaned from 
three dialects can be fairly set down as onomatopeic, how 
much less is likely to be the proportion of such names to the 
whole vocabulary of any one tribe ? 

Most Algonkin names of animals are descriptive derivatives, 
and the few apparent exceptions belong to species which are 
more often heard than seen, while it is doubtful if any name 
of a quadruped is purely mimetic. Attention should also be 
paid to certain curious features of Indian nomenclature, espe- 
cially to the combination of a generic characteristic with spe- 
cific names; as, for example, certain swimming animals have 
a common suffix of derivation coming from a root that means 
‘put the head above water’; others, one that means ‘bite’; 


CC 2 


388 CHAPTER VII. 


others, ‘scratch’ or ‘tear’; of plants, some are thus marked 
as to be eaten green, as nut-bearing, as having eatable roots, 
and soon. Such a suffix, in the Chippeway and allied tongues, 
is gun, the formative of the instrumentive participial; the 
occurrence of which at the end of the name for ‘shooting- 
instrument’ has misled Mr. Farrar into affirming (p. 34) that 
‘in some cases the onomatopeeic instinct is so strong that it 
asserts itself side by side with the adoption of a name from a 
foreign language.’ 


But whatever we may think of these onomatopceic 
and interjectional theories, we must carefully dis- 
tinguish between two things. There is one class of 
scholars who derive all words from roots according 
to the strictest rules of comparative grammar, but 
who look upon the roots, in their original character, 
as either interjectional or onomatopceic. There are 
others who derive words straight from interjections 
and the cries of animals, and who claim in their 
etymologies all the liberty the cow claims in saying 
booh, mooh, or ooh, or that man claims in saying 
pooh, fi, pfur." With regard to the former theory, 
I should wish to remain entirely neutral, satisfied 
with considering roots as phonetic types, and pa- 
tiently waiting till some progress has been made in 
tracing the principal roots, not of Sanskrit only, 
but of Chinese, Bask, the Turanian, and Semitic lan- 
guages, back to the cries of man or the imitated 
sounds of nature. 

Quite distinct from this is that other theory which, 
without the intervention of determinate roots, derives 


* On the uncertainty of rendering inarticulate by articulate sounds, 
see Marsh (4th ed.), p. 36; Sir John Stoddart’s Glossology, p. 231; 
Meélanges asiatiques (St. Petersbourg), iv. 1. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 389 


our words directly from cries and interjections. This 
theory would undo all the work that has been done 
by Bopp, Humboldt, Grimm, and others, during the 
last fifty years; it would with one stroke abolish all 
the phonetic laws that have been established with so 
much care and industry, and throw etymology back 
into a state of chaotic anarchy. According to Grimm’s 
law, we derive the English fiend, the German feind, 
the Gothic fyand, from a root which, if it exists at all 
in Sanskrit, Latin, Lituanian, or Celtic, must there 
begin with the tenuis p. Such is the phonetic law 
that holds these languages together, and that cannot 
be violated with impunity. If we found in Sanskrit a 
word fiend, we should feel certain that it could not be 
the same as the English fiend. Following this rule 
we find in Sanskrit the root pty, to hate, to destroy, 
the participle of which piyant wduld correspond 
exactly with Gothic fyand. But suppose we derived 
fiend and other words of a similar sound, such as foul, 
juth, &e., from the interjections fi, and pooh (faugh! 
fo! fie! Lit. pui, Germ. pfui), all would be mere 
scramble and confusion; Grimm’s law would be 
broken; and roots, kept distinct in Sanskrit, Greek, 
Latin, and German, would be mixed up together. 
For besides piy, to hate, there is another root in 
Sanskrit, ptiy, to decay. From it we have Latin pus, 
puteo, putridus; Greek pyon, and pythé; Lituanian 
pulei, matter; and, in strict accordance with Grimm’s 
law, Gothic fils, English foul. If these words were 
derived from fi! then we should likewise have to 
include all the descendants of the root bhi, to fear, 
such as Lituanian byau, I fear, biawrus, ugly; in 


390 CHAPTER VII. 


fact, it would be difficult to know where to stop, for 
almost everything could become everything. 

In the same manner, if we looked upon thunder as 
a mere imitation of the inarticulate noise of thunder, 
we could not trace the A.S. thunor back to the root 
tan, which expresses that tension of the air which 
gives rise to sound, but we should have to class it 
together with other words, such as to din, to dun, and 
discover in each, as best we could, some similarity 
with some inarticulate noise. If, on the contrary, 
we bind ourselves by definite rules, we find that the 
same law which changes Sanskrit tan into Gothic 
than, changes another root dhvan into din. There 
may be, for all we know, some distant relationship 
between the two roots tan and dhvan; but, from the 
earliest beginnings of the history of the Aryan. lan- 
guage, these two roots were independent germs, each 
the starting-point of large classes of words, the phonetic 
character of which is determined throughout by the 
type from which they issue. To ignore the indivi- 
duality of each root in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, 
would be like ignoring the individuality of the types 
of the animal creation. There may be higher, more 
general, more abstract types, but if we want to reach 
them, we must first toil through the lower and more 
special types; we must retrace, in the descending 
scale of scientific analysis, every step by which, in an 
ascending scale, language has arrived at its present 
state. 

The onomatopceic system would be the death of all 
scientific etymology, and no amount of learning and 
ingenuity displayed in its application could atone 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 391 


for the lawlessness which is sanctioned by it. If it is 
once admitted that all words must be traced back to 
definite roots, according to the strictest phonetic rules, 
it matters little whether these roots are called phonetic 
types, more or less preserved in all the innumerable 
impressions that are taken from them, or whether 
some scholars prefer to call them onomatopceic and 
interjectional. As long as we have definite forms 
between ourselves and chaos, we may build our science 
like an arch of a bridge that rests on the firm piles 
fixed in the rushing waters. If, on the contrary, the 
roots of language are mere abstractions, and there is 
nothing to separate language from cries and interjec- 
tions, then we may play with language as children 
play with the sands of the sea, but we must not com- 
plain if every fresh tide wipes out the little castles we 
had built on the beach. 


What the Greeks meant by Onomatopceia. 


A very plausible argument in favour of the onoma- 
topeeic origin of language has been derived from the 
totally mistaken idea that the ancient Greek philoso- 
phers supported that view. Nothing could have been 
more remote from their minds. By onomatopwia they 
meant to designate not real words, but made, artifi- 
cial, imitative words—words that anyone could make 
at amoment’s notice. Even the earliest of Greek philo- 
sophers had seen enough of language to know that the 
key to its mysteries could not be bought so cheaply. 
When Aristotle? calls words imitations (mimémata), 


1 Rhet. iii. 1: Ta yap édvéuara pipnuard éotw, timnple 5€ Kat h bw? 
Hien ) UTP 7) 7] 
, , las /, ead 
TAVTWV MLUNTLKOTATOV THY opie Hyiv, 


392 CHAPTER VII. 


he does not mean those downright imitations, as when 
we call a cow a moo, or a dog a bow-wow. His 
statements and those of Plato! on language must be 
read in connection with the statements of earlier 
philosophers, such as Pythagoras (540-510), Heraclitus 
(503), Democritus (430-410), and others. We shall 
then see how much had been achieved before them, 
how many guesses. on language had been made and 
refuted, before they in turn pronounced their verdict. 
Although we possess but scant, abrupt, and oracular 
Sayings which are ascribed to those early sages, yet 
these are sufficient to show that they had pierced 
through the surface of language, and that the real 
difhculties of the origin of words had not escaped 
their notice. When we translate the enigmatic and 
poetical utterances of Heraclitus into our modern, 
dry, and definite phraseology, we can hardly do them 
Justice. Perfect as they are when seen in their dark 
shrines, they crumble to dust as soon as they are 
touched by the bright rays of our modern philosophy. 
Yet if we can descend ourselves into the dark cata- 
combs of ancient thought, we feel that we are there in 
the presence of men who, if they lived with us and 
could but speak our language, would be looked upon 
as giants. They certainly had this one advantage 
over us, that their eyes had not been dimmed by the 
dust raised in the wars of words that have been going 
on since their time for more than two thousand years. 
When we are told that the principal difference of 
opinion that separated the philosophers of old with 


* Plato, Cratylus, 423 B: dvopa dpa éoriv, ds €ouke, piunua pwova 
éxeivov d yupecras kal dvopdcer & pipovpmevos TH porn, dray pupArac. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 393 


regard to the nature and origin of language is ex- 
pressed by the two words physer and thései, ‘ natu- 
rally’ and ‘conventionally, we learn very little from 
such general terms. We must know the whole his- 
tory of those words, which were watchwords in every 
school of philosophy, before they dwindled down to 
mere technical terms. With the later sophists thésez, 
‘conventionally, or the still earlier ndémé, ‘ according 
to rule, meant no longer what they meant with the 
fathers of Greek philosophy; nay, they sometimes 
assumed the very opposite meaning. A sophist like 
Hermogenes, in order to prove that language existed 
conventionally, maintained that an apple might have 
been called a plum, and a plum an apple, if people 
had only agreed to do so.1 Another? pointed in 
triumph to his slave, to whom he had actually given 
a new name, by calling him ‘ Yet, in order to prove 
that any word might be significative. Nor were 
the arguments in favour of the natural origin of 
language of a better kind, when the efficacy of curses 
was quoted to show that words endowed with such 


1 Lersch, Sprachphilosophie der Alten, i.p.28. Ammonius Hermias 
ad Aristot. de Interpr. p. 25 A: Oi pév otrw 70 Oéver A€youow ws efdv 
é6TwoUv TaY avOpwraVv ExacTOV THY TpaypaTwYy dvouacey btw av eérAN 
dvopari, KadaTep ‘Eppoyerns jgiov. ... Oi 5é ody ovTwWS, GAAG TiDETIaL pev 
Ta dvépata bw povou TOU dvopabérou, TovTOY Se civar TOY émLaTHMOVA THs 
pvoews THY TpayLaToV, oikelov TH ExdoTOU TaY bvTAY pice empnyiCovTa 
évopa, 1) TOV bmnpeTOUpEvov TH emoTHpove. 

2 L.c.i. 42. Ammonius Hermias ad Aristot. de Interpret. p. 103 : 
Ei 5¢ ravra dp0ds Aéyeral, SRAov ws on amode~opcba TOY SiadrexTiKOY 
A.ddwpov macav oidpevov pwrviv onuavtinny eivar, Kal mpds mioTLy TOUTOU 
KadéoavTa THY EaUTOU TLV OikETaV TO TvAAOCYLOTIK® ovvbéopw “AAAaNY 
kal GAAov GAAw ovvdéopw' Toiay ydp Efovow ai ToadTa pwval onuaciav 
pvoews Tivos tH evepyelas 7) ma0ous, nabawep TA pHuaTa xadrenoy Kal 
mAdoat, 


394 CHAPTER VII. 


powers could not have a merely human or conven- 
tional origin.? 


Greek Theories on Language. 


Such was not the reasoning of Heraclitus or Demo- 
eritus. The language in which they spoke, the whole 
world of thought in which they lived, did not allow 
them to discuss the nature and origin of language 
after the fashion of these sophists, nor after our own 
fashion. They had to speak in parables, in full, 
weighty, suggestive poetry, poetry that cannot be 
translated without an anachronism. We must take 
their words, such as they are, with all their vagueness 
and all their depth, but we must not judge them by 
these words, as if these words were spoken by our- 
selves. The oracle on language which is ascribed to 
Heraclitus was certainly his own. Commentators 
may have spoiled, but they could not have invented 
it. Heraclitus held that words exist naturally, but he 
did not confine himself to that technical phraseology. 
Words, he said,? are like shadows of things, like the 
pictures of trees and mountains reflected in the river, 
hke our own images when we look into a mirror. 
This sounds like Heraclitus; his sentences are always 
like nuggets of gold, to use his own simile,? without 
any of the rubbish through which philosophers have 
to dig before they can bring to light solid truth. He 


1 Lersch, l. ¢. i. p. 44. 

* Lersch, 7. ¢c,i. 11. Ammonius ad Arist. de Interpret. p. 24 B, ed. 
Ald. 

° Bernays, Neue Bruchstiicke des Heraclitus von Ephesus, Rheinisches 
Museum fiir Philologie, x. p. 242: xpuodv of &Cquevor yhv modAdv 
dpvcoovor kal etpioxovar dAtyov. Clemens Stromat. iv. 2, p. 565 P. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 395 


is likewise reported to have said, that to use any 
words except those supplied by nature for each thing, 
was not to speak, but only to make a noise. What 
Heraclitus meant by his simile, or by the word — 
‘nature, if he used. it, we cannot know definitely ; 
but we know, at all events, what he did not mean, 
namely, that man imposed what names he pleased 
on the objects around him. To have perceived that 
at that time, to have given any thought to that pro- 
blem in the days when Heraclitus lived, stamps him 
once for all as a philosopher, ignorant though he may 
have been of all the rules of our logic, our rhetoric, 
and our grammar. 

It is commonly supposed that, as on all other sub- 
jects, so on the subject of language too, Democritus 
took the opposite view of the dark thinker, nor can 
we doubt that Democritus represented language as 
due to thésis, i.e. institution, art, convention. None 
of these terms, however, can more than indicate the 
meaning of thésis. The lengthy arguments which are 
ascribed to him! in support of his theory savour of 
modern thought, but the similes again, which go by 
his name, are certainly his own. Democritus called 
words agdlmata phénéenta, statues in sound. Here, 


1 Lersch, i, p.14. Proclus, ad Plat. Crat. p.6: ‘O 5 Anpédxpitos 
béce: A€ywv Ta dvdpaTa, bia Tecodpwy em yxELpNuaTaY TOUTO KaTETKEVACeY’ 
éx Ths Opwvuplas' TA yap Siapopa mpaypata TO av’T@ kKadovvTat dvdparte’ 
ove dpa pice 70 Ovopa' Kal éx THs ToAvwyvpias’ ei yap Sidpopa dvdpara 
ph als nt aN we A 2 / s% / oe Sere A 
él TO avTO Kal ev mpaypa epappdaovow, Kal EmadANAG, OMEp GdvYaToOY 
TpiTov éx THs T&V dvopdTwy peTabécews’ Sid Ti yap Tov ’AptoToKéa pev 
TlAdrwva, Tov 5é Tuprapov @edppacroy peTwvopdcaper, ei pioe Ta dvd- 

> SS a a“ ¢ , bY f 5 x fa Oe eN \ a iL 
patra; éx 5€ THs THY dpoiwy édhAEiWEews’ Oia TL ATO pev THS Ppovngews 

/ A Lea. \ la UA b) BA Fy / Ba 
A€éyouey ppovely, awd Se THs Suxacoovyys ove ETL Tapovopacomev 5 TYXN apa 

Ul ny e2 / 
kal ov pvoet TA OvopaTa, 


396 CHAPTER VII. 


too, we have the pithy expression of ancient philo- 
sophy. Words are not natural images, images thrown 
by nature on the mirror of the soul; they are statues, 
works of art, only not in stone or brass, but in sound, 
Such is the opinion of Democritus, though we must 
take care not to stretch his words beyond their proper 
intent. If we translate thésec by artificial, we must 
not take artificial in the sense of arbitrary. If we 
translate némé by conventional, we must not take it 
to mean accidental. The same philosopher would, for 
instance, have maintained that what we call sweet or 
sour, warm or cold, is likewise so théset or conven- 
tionally, but by no means arbitrarily. The war-cries 
of physet or théset, which are heard through the whole 
history of these distant battles of thought, involved 
not only philosophical, but political, moral, religious 
interests. 

We shall best understand their meaning, if we watch 
their application to moral ideas. Philolaos, the famous 
Pythagorean philosopher, held that virtue existed by 
nature, not by institution. What did he mean? He 
meant what we mean when we say that virtue was 
not an invention of men who agreed to call some 
things good and others bad, but that there is a voice 
of conscience within us, the utterance of a divine law, 
independent of human statutes and traditions, self- 
evident, irrefragable. Yet even those who maintained 
that morality was but another name for legality, and 
that good and bad were simply conventional terms, 
insisted strongly on the broad distinction between 
law and the caprice of individuals. The same in lan- 
guage. When Democritus said that words were not 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 397 


natural images, natural echoes, but works of art in 
sound, he did not mean to degrade language to a mere 
conglomerate of sound. On the contrary, had he, with 
his terminology, ascribed language to nature, nature 
being with him the mere concurrence of atoms, he 
would have shown less insight into the origin, less 
regard for the law and order which pervade language. 
Language, he said, exists by institution ; but how he 
must have guarded his words against any possible 
misapprehension, how he must have protested against 
the confusion of the two ideas, conventional and arbi- 
trary, we may gather from the expression ascribed to 
him by a later scholiast, that words were statues in 
sound, but statues not made by the hands of men, 
but by the gods themselves.1_ The boldness and preg- 
nancy of such expressions are the best guarantee of 
their genuineness, and to throw them aside as inven- 
tions of later writers would betray an utter disregard 
of the criteria by which we distinguish ancient and 
modern thought. 

Our present object, however, is not to find out what 
these early philosophers thought of language—I am 
afraid we shall never be able to do that—but only to 
guard against their memory being insulted, and their 
names abused for sanctioning the shallow wisdom 
of later ages. It is sufficient if we only see clearly 
that, with the ancient Greeks, language was not con- 
sidered as mere onomatopeia, although that name 


1 Olympiodorus ad Plat. Philebum, p. 242, Ore dyaApara pwovnevTa 
nad Tatra éo7l Trav Ocav, &s Anudxpiros. It is curious that Lersch, who 
quotes this passage (iii. 19), should, nevertheless, have ascribed to 
Democritus the opinion of the purely human origin of language. (i. 13.) 


398 CHAPTER VII. 


means, literally, making of names. I should not ven- 
ture to explain what Pythagoras meant by saying, 
‘the wisest of all things is Number, and, next to 
Number, that which gives name.’! But of this I 
feel certain, that by the Second in Wisdom in the 
universe, even though he may have represented him 
exoterically as a human being, as the oldest and 
wisest of men,? ~Pythagoras did not mean the man 
who, when he heard a cock crow, succeeded in re- 
peating that sound and fixed it as the name of the 
animal. As to Plato and Aristotle, it is hardly ne- 
cessary to defend them against the imputation of 
tracing language back to onomatopwia. Even Epi- 
curus, who is reported to have said that in the first 
formation of language men acted unconsciously, moved 
by nature, as in coughing, sneezing, lowing, barking, 
or sighing, admitted that this would account only for 
one-half of language, and that some agreement must 
have taken place before language really began, before 
people could know what each person meant by these 
uncouth utterances.? In this Hpicwrus shows a more 
correct appreciation of the nature of language than 
many who profess to hold his theories at present. 


1. ‘Lersch, /..c. 1.25, 2 Tbidi l, ccd 24 

% Diogenes Laértius, Hptcurus, § 75: “Odev kal ra évopara ef apxns 
Bi) Oéoe yevéoOa, GAN’ adtas Tas pices THY avOpwrwv Ka Exacra evn) 
iia macxXovaas T4On, Kal ida AapBavovoas POV TECH ARES idiws Tov dépar 
exTE[TELY, re ouey oy by’ ExdoTav Tov Ta0wv Kab T&Y pavTacpHaTeY, ws 
av TOTE Kal % Tapa Tovs TémOUS THY COVaV Staspopa ein. Latepey dé Kowwas 
Kad’ Exacta €6vn Ta tdia AEP mpos TO Tas onhwoas H Rae dugiBodous 
yeveobau adAAnAos, Kal Tuy TopOTE pols dnAovpevas’ Tiva bé Kal ov ouvopupeva 
a pay Hare elopépovras, Tovs cuveddTas mapeyyunoar Tivds pOdyyous ay 
TOUS peyv MOLD OL GSS dvaparicat, Tovs 6& TO AOYLO UD EAopevous KaTa 
THY TrELoTHY aitiav otTwSs Epunvedoat,—Lersch, i. 39. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 399 


He met the objection that words, if suggested by 
nature, ought to be the same in all countries, by a 
remark in which he anticipated Humboldt, viz. that 
human nature is affected differently in different. 
countries, that different views are formed of things, 
and that these different affections and views influence 
the formation of words peculiar to each nation. He 
saw that the sounds of nature would never have grown 
into articulate language without passing through a 
second stage, which he, from his peculiar point of view, 
represents as an agreement or an understanding to 
use a certain sound for a certain conception. 


Natural Selection or Rational Elimination. 


Let us substitute for this Epicurean idea of a con- 
ventional agreement an idea which did not exist in 
his time, and the full elaboration of which in our 
own time we owe to the genius of Darwin ;—let us 
place instead of agreement, Natural Selection, or, as 
I still prefer to call it, Natwral Elimination, and we 
shall then arrive, I believe, at an understanding with 
Epicurus, and even with some of his modern fol- 
lowers. 

Natural selection, whenever we can watch it, is 
invariably rational selection. It is not any acci- 
dental variety that survives and perpetuates itself; 
it is the individual that is best calculated to accom- 
plish the ends for which the type or species to which 
it belongs was called into being, that conquers in the 
great struggle for life. So it is in thought and lan- 
guage. Not every random perception is raised to 
the dignity of a general notion, but only the con- 


400 CHAPTER VII. 


stantly recurring, the strongest, the most useful; and 
out of the endless number of general notions that 
suggest themselves to the observing and gathering 
mind, those only survive and receive definite pho- 
netic expression which are absolutely requisite for 
carrying on the work of life. Many perceptions 
which naturally present themselves to our minds 
have never been gathered up into general. notions, 
and accordingly they have not received a name. 
There is no general notion to comprehend all blue 
flowers or all red stones; no name that éncludes 
horses and dogs, but excludes oxen and sheep. The 
Greek language has never produced a word to ex- 
press animal as opposed to man, and the word zéon, 
which, like animal, comprises all living creatures, is 
post-Homeric.! Locke has called attention to the 
fact that in English there is a special word for killing 
a man, namely, murder, while there is none for 
killing a sheep; that there is a special designation 
for the murder of a father, namely, parricide, but 
none for the murder of a son or a neighbour. ‘Thus 
the mind, he writes,? ‘in mixed modes, arbitrarily 
unites into complex ideas such as it finds convenient; 
whilst others that have altogether as much union in 
nature are left loose, and never combined into one 
idea because they have no need of one name. And 
again, ‘Colshire, driiling, filtration, cohobation, are 
words standing for certain complex ideas, which, 
being seldom in-the minds of any but the few whose 
particular employments do at every turn suggest 


* Curtius, Graundziige,i.78. L. Geiger, Ursprung der Sprache, p. 14. 
* Locke, On the Understanding, iii. 5, 6. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 401 


them to their thoughts, those names of them are not 
generally understood but by smiths and chymists, 
who having framed the complex ideas which these 
words stand for, and having given names to them or. 
received them from others upon hearing of these 
names in communication, readily conceive those ideas 
in their minds; as by cohobation, all the simple ideas 
of distilling and the pouring the liquor distilled from 
anything back upon the remaining matter, and dis- 
tilling it again. Thus we see that there are great 
varieties of simple ideas, as of tastes and smells, 
which have no names, and of modes many more, 
which either not having been generally enough ob- 
served, or else not being of any great use to be 
taken notice of in the affairs and concerns of men, 
they have not had names given to them, and so pass 
not for species.’! 

Of course, when new combinations arise, and again 
and again assert their independence, they at last 
receive admittance into the commonwealth of ideas 
and the republic of words. This applies to ancient 
even more than to modern times—to the early ages 
of language more than to its present state. It was 
an event in the history of man when the ideas of 
father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife were 
first conceived and first uttered. It was a new era 
when the numerals from one to ten had been framed, 
and when words like law, right, duty, virtue, gene- 
rosity, love, had been added to the dictionary of man. 
It was a revelation—the greatest of all revelations— 


1 Locke, l. c. ii, 18, 7 
Il, pd 


402 CHAPTER VII. ~ 


when the conception of a Creator, a Ruler, a Father 
of man, when the name of God was for the first time 
uttered in this world. Such were the general notions 
that were wanted and that were coined into intellec- 
tual currency. Other notions started up, lived for a 
time, and disappeared again when no longer required. 
Others will still rise up, unless our intellectual life 
becomes stagnant, and will receive the baptism of 
language. 

Who has thought about the changes which are 
brought about apparently by the exertions of indi- 
viduals, but for the accomplishment of which, never- 
theless, individual exertions would seem to be totally 
unavailing, without feeling the want of a word, that 
is to say, in reality, of an idea, to comprehend the 
influence of individuals on the world at large and of 
the world at large on individuals—an idea that should 
explain the failure of a Huss in reforming the Church, 
and the success of a Luther, the defeat of a Pitt in 
carrying parliamentary reform, and the success of 
a Russell? How are we to express that historical 
process in which the individual seems to be a free 
agent and yet is the slave of the masses whom he 
wants to influence, in which the masses seem irre- 
sistible, and are yet swayed by the pen of an unknown 
writer? Or, to descend to smaller matters, how does 
a poet become popular? How does a new style of 
art or architecture prevail? How, again, does fashion 
change ?—how does what seemed absurd last year 
become recognised in this, and what is admired in 
this become ridiculous in the next season? Or take 
language itself. How is it that a new word, such as 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 408 


to shunt,’ or a new pronunciation, such as gold instead 
of goold, is sometimes accepted, while at other times 
the best words newly coined or newly revived by our 
best writers are completely ignored and fall dead? 
We want an idea that is to exclude caprice as well 
as necessity—that is to include individual exertion 
as well as general co-operation—an idea applicable 
neither to the unconscious building of bees nor to the 
conscious architecture of human beings, yet com- 
bining within itself both these operations, and raising 
them toa new and higher conception. You will guess 
‘both the idea and the word, if I add that it is like- 
wise to explain the extinction of fossil kingdoms and 
the origin of new species—it is the idea of Natural 
Selection or Rational Elimination that was wanted, 
and being wanted it was found, and being found it 
was named. It is a new category—a new engine of 
thought; and if naturalists are proud to affix their 
names to a new species which they discover, Mr. Dar- 
win may be prouder, for his name will remain affixed 
to a new idea, a new genus of thought. 


All Names are General Terms. 


There are languages, we are told, without numerals 
beyond four. All beyond four is lumped together in 
the general idea of many. There are dialects, such 
as the Hawaian, in which? black and blue and dark- 
green are not distinguished, nor bright yellow and 
white, nor brown and red. This arises from no ob- 


1 See vol. i. p.:37. 
2 The Polynesian, September 27, 1862; Hibbert Lectures, p. 41. 


pd2 


404, CHAPTER VII. 


tuseness of sense, for the slightest variation of tint is 
immediately detected by the people, but from slug- 
gishness of mind. In the same way the Hawaians 
are said to have but one term for love, friendship, 
gratitude, benevolence, esteem, &c., which they call 
indiscriminately aloha, though the same people dis- 
tinguish in their dictionary between aneane, a gentle 
breeze, matani, wind, puhi, blowing or puffing with 
the mouth, and hano, blowing through the nose, 
asthma.' It is the same in the lower classes of our 
own country. People who would never use such 
words as quadruped, or mineral, or beverage, have 
different names for the tail of a fox, the tail of a dog, 
the tail of a hare.? 

Castrén, the highest authority on the languages, 
literature, and civilisation of the Northern Turanian 
races, such as the Mins, Laps, Tatars, and Mongo- 
lians, speaks of tribes which have no word for river, 
though they have names for the smallest rivulet; no 
word for finger, but names for the thumb, the ring- 
finger, &e.; no word for berry, but many names for 
cranberry, strawberry, blueberry ; no word for tree, 
but names for birch, fir, ash, and other trees. He 
states in another place (p. 18) that in Finnish the 
word for thumb gradually assumed the meaning of 
finger, the word for waterberry (empetrum nigrum) 
the meaning of berry. 

But even these, the most special names, are really 
general terms, and express originally a general quality ; 


* Hale, Polynesian Lexicon, s. v. 
* Pott, Htymologische Forschungen, ii. 439. 
* Vorlesungen iiber Finnische Mythologie, p. 11. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 405 


nor is there any other way in which they could have 
been formed. It is difficult to place ourselves in the 
position of people with whom the framing of new 
ideas and new words was the chief occupation of their. 
life." But suppose we had no word for dog; what 
could we do? If we, with a full-grown language at 
our command, became for the first time acquainted 
with a dog, we should probably discover some simi- 
larity between it and some other animal, and call it 
accordingly. We might call it a tame wolf, just as 
the inhabitants of Mallicolo,? when they saw the first 
dogs that had been sent to them from the Society 
Islands, called them broods, their name for pig. 
Exactly the same happened in the island of Tanna. 
Here, too, the inhabitants called the dogs that were 
sent to them pigs (buga). It would, however, very 
soon be felt as an inconvenience not to be able to 
distinguish between a dog and a pig, and some dis- 
tinguishing mark of the dog would have to be chosen 
by which to name it. How could that be effected 2 
It might be effected by imitating the barking of the 
animal, and calling it bow-wow; yet, strange to say, 
we hardly ever find a civilised language in which the 
dog was so called. What really took place was this. 
The mind received numerous impressions from every- 
thing that came within its ken. <A dog did not stand 
before it at once, properly defined and classified, but 
it was observed under different aspects—now as a 
savage animal, now as a companion, sometimes as a 
watcher, sometimes as a thief, occasionally as a swift 


* Daniel Wilson, Prehistoric Man, third chapter. 
* Pott, Htymologische Forschungen, ii, 188. 


406 CHAPTER VII. 


hunter, at other times as a coward or an unclean 
beast. From every one of these impressions a name 
might be framed, and after a time the process of 
natural elimination would reduce the number of these 
names, and leave only a few, or only one, which, like 
canis, would become the proper name of dog. 


Clusters of Roots. 


But in order that any such name could be given, 
it was requisite that general ideas, such as roving, 
following, watching, stealing, running, resting, should 
previously have been formed in the mind, and should 
have received expression in language. These general 
ideas are expressed by roots. As they are more 
simple and primitive, they are expressed by more 
simple and primitive roots, whereas complex ideas 
found expression in secondary radicals. Thus to go 
would be expressed by sar, to creep, by sarp; to shout 
by nad, to rejoice by nand, to join by yu or yug, to 
glue together by yaut. We thus find in Sanskrit and 
in all the Aryan languages clusters of roots, expressive 
of one common idea, and differing from each other 
merely by one or two additional letters, either at the 
end or at the beginning. The most natural suppo- 
sition seems to be that which I have just stated, that 
as ideas grew and multiplied, simple roots were in- 
creased and became diversified. But the opposite 
view might likewise be defended, namely, that lan- 
guage began with variety, that many special roots 
were thrown out first, and from them the more 
general roots elaborated by leaving out those letters 
which constituted the specific differences of each. 


ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 407 


Much may be said in support of either of these 
views, nor is it at all unlikely that both processes, 
that of accretion and that of elimination, may have 
been at work simultaneously. But the fact is that we 
know nothing even of the most ancient of the Aryan 
languages, the. Sanskrit, till after it had long passed 
through its radical and agglutinative stages, and we 
shall never know for certain by what slow degrees it 
advanced through both, and became settled as an 
inflectional language. Chronologically speaking, the 
question whether sarp existed before sar, is unan- 
swerable. Logically, no doubt, sar comes first, but 
we have seen enough of the history of speech to know 
that what ought to have been according to the strict 
laws of logic is very different from what has been 
according to the pleasure of language.' 

What it is of the greatest importance to observe is 
this, that out of many possible general notions, and 
out of many possible general terms, those only be- 
come, through a process of natural selection, typical 
in each language which are now called the roots, the 
fertile germs of that language. These roots are 
definite in form and meaning: they are what I called 
phonetic types, firm in their outline, though still liable 
to important modifications. They are the ‘ speczfic 
centres’ of language, and without them the science 
of language would be impossible. 


1 On clusters of roots, or the gradual growth of roots, see some 
interesting remarks by Benfey, Kurze Sanskrit Grammatik, § 60 seq., 
and Pott, Htymologische Forschungen, ii. p.283. Bopp, Vergleichende 
Grammatik, § 109 a, 3,109 b, 1. See vol. i. p. 372. 


CHAPTER: VIII. 


“THE ROOT MAR, 


ET us now take a root, and follow it through its 
adventures in its way through the world. There 

is an Aryan root MAR, which means to crush, to pound, 
to destroy by friction. I should not venture to say 
that those are mistaken who imagine they perceive 
in this root the grating noise of some solid bodies 
grinding against each other. Our idiosyncrasies as 
to the nature of certain sounds are formed, no doubt, 
very much through the silent influence of the lan- 
guages which we speak or with which we are ac- 
quainted. It is true, no doubt, also that this jarring 
or rasping noise is rendered very differently in 
different languages. Nevertheless, there being such 
a root as mar, meaning to pound, it is natural to 
imagine that we hear in it something like the noise 
of two mill-stones, or of a metal-crushing engine.! 


* The following remarks of St. Augustine on this subject are 
curious :—‘ Donec perveniatur eo ut res cum sono verbi aliqua simili- 
tudine concinat, ut cum dicimus eris tinnitum, equorum hinnitum, 
ovium balatum, tubarum clangorem, stridorem catenarum (perspicis 
enim hee verba ita sonare ut ipse res que his verbis significantur). 
Sed quia sunt res que non sonant, in his similitudinem tactus valere, 
ut si leniter vel aspere sensum tangunt, lenitas vel asperitas literarum 
ut tangit auditum sic eis nomina peperit: ut ipsum lene cum dicimus 
leniter sonat ; quis item asperitatem non et ipso nomine asperam judi- 


THE ROOT MAR. 409 


But let us mark at once the difference between a 
mere imitation of the inarticulate groaning and 
moaning noises produced by crushing hard sub- 
stances, and the articulate sound mar. Lvery pos- 
sible combination of consonants with final r or / 
suggested itself. Avr, tr, chr, glr, all would have 
answered the purpose, and may have been used, for 
all we know, previous to the first beginning of 
articulate speech. But, as soon as mr had got the 
upperhand, all other combinations were discarded. 
Mr had conquered, and became by that very fact the 
ancestor of a large family of words. If, then, we 
either follow the history of this root MAR in an 
ascending line and spreading direction, or if we 
trace its offshoots back in a descending line to their 
specific germ, we must be able to explain all later 
modifications, as necessitated by phonetic and ety- 
mological laws; in all the various settings, the 
jewel must be the same; and, in all its various 
corruptions, the causes must be apparent that pro- 
duced the damage. 

I begin, then, with the root MAA, and ascribe to 
it the meaning of grinding down. Im all the words 


cet? Lene est auribus cum dicimus voluptas, asperum cum dicimus 
crux. Ita res ipse adficiunt, ut verba sentiuntur. Mel, quam suaviter 
gustum res ipsa, tam leniter nomine tangit auditum, acre in utroque 
asperum est. Lana et vepres ut audiuntur verba, sic illa tanguntur. 
Hee quasi cunabula verborum esse crediderunt, ubi sensus rerum cum 
sonorum sensu concordarent. Hine ad ipsarum inter se rerum similitu- 
dinem processisse licentiam nominandi; ut cum verbi causa crux prop- 
terea dicta sit, quod ipsius verbi asperitas cum doloris quem crux efficit 
asperitate concordat, crura tamen non propter asperitatem doloris sed, 
quod longitudine atque duritiainter membra cetera sint ligno similiora sic 
appellata sint.—Augustinus, De Dialectica, as corrected by Crecelius 
in Hoefer’s Zeitschrift, iv. 152. 


410 CHAPTER VIII. 


that are derived from mar there must be no phonetic 
change, whether by increase, decrease, or corruption, 
that cannot be supported by analogy; in all the 
ideas expressed by these words there must always be 
a connecting link by which the most elevated and 
abstract notions can be connected, directly or indi- 
rectly, with the original conception of ‘ grinding.’ 
In the phonetic analysis, all that is fanciful and 
arbitrary is at once excluded: nothing is tolerated 
for which there is not some precedent. In the web 
of ideas, on the contrary, which the Aryan mind has 
spun out of that one homely conception we must be 
prepared not only for the orderly procession of logical 
thought, but frequently for the poetic flights of 
fancy. The production of new words rests on poetry 
as much, if not more, than on judgment; and to 
exclude the poetical or fanciful element in the early 
periods of the history of human speech would be to 
deprive ourselves of the most important aid in un- 
ravelling its early beginnings. 

Before we enter on our survey of this family of 
words, we must bear in mind (1) that 7 and / are 
cognate and interchangeable; therefore mar=mal. 

2. That ar in Sanskrit is shortened to a simple 
vowel, and then pronounced 77; hence mar=m7rv. 

3. That ar may be pronounced va,! and al, la; 
hence mar=mra, mal=mla. 

4. That mra and mla in Greek are changed into 
mbro, nblo, and, after dropping the m, into bro and blo. 


* In Sanskrit we have mardité and mradita, he will grind to 
pieces, as the future of mard. See M. M.’s Sanskrit Grammar (2nd 
ed), p..205. 


THE ROOT MAR. 411, 


Mar as Transitive. 


In Sanskrit we find malana in the sense of rub- 
bing or grinding, but the root does not seem in that 
language to have yielded any names for mill. This 
may be important historically, if it should indicate 
that real mills were unknown previous to the Aryan 
separation. In Latin, Greek, German, Celtic, Sla- 
vonic, the name for mill is throughout derived from 
the root mar. Thus, Latin mola,'! Greek mylé, Old 
High-German muli, Irish metle, Bohemian mlyn, 
Lituanian malunas. From these close coincidences 
among all the members of the Northern branch of 
the Aryan family, it has been concluded that mills 
were known previous to the separation of the 
Northern branch, though it ought to be borne in 
mind that some of these nations may also have 
borrowed the name from others who were the first 
inventors of mills. 

With the name for mill we have at the same 
time the names for miller, mill-stone, milling, meal. 
In Greek mylos, mill-stone; myllé, I mill. In 
Gothic malan, to mill; melo, meal; muljan, to rub 
to pieces. 

What in English are called the mill-teeth are 
the mylitat in Greek ; the moldres, or grinders, in 
Latin. 

To anyone acquainted with the living language of 
England, the transition from milling to fighting does 
not require any long explanation. Hence we trace 


1 See Pott, Htym. Forsch. (I.) i. 220. Kuhn, Indische Studien, i. 
359. Curtius, G. H. i. 302. 


412 CHAPTER VIII. 


back to mar without difficulty the Homeric mdér-na- 
mar, I fight, I pound, as applied to boxers in the 
Odyssey.t In Sanskrit, we find mri-nAi-mi used 
in the more serious sense of smashing, i.e. killing.? 
We shall now understand more readily the Greek 
mélos in mélos Aréos, the toil and moil of war, and 
likewise the Greek mdléps, a weal, originally a blow, 
a contusion. 


Mar as Intransitive. 


Hitherto we have treated mar as a transitive verb, 
as expressive of the action of grinding exerted on 
some object or other. But most verbs were used 
originally intransitively as well as transitively, and 
so was mar. What then would mar express if used 
as an intransitive verb, if expressive of a mere con- 
dition or status? It would mean ‘to be wearing 
away, ‘to be in a state of decay,’ ‘to crumble away 
as if ground to dust.’ We say in German, sich auf- 
reiben, to become exhausted; and aufgerieben means 
nearly destroyed. Goethe says, ‘Die Kraft der 
Lrregbarkeit nimmt mit dem Leben ab, bis endlich 
den aufgeriebenen Menschen nichts mehr auf der 
leeren Welt erregt als die kiinftige;’ ‘Our excita- 
bility decreases with our life, till at last nothing can 
excite the ground-down mortal in this empty world 
except the world to come.’ What then is the meaning 
of the Greek maratnéd and marasmés? Maratno, 

Od. xvii. 31: 

Zioa viv, iva navres émyvwwor Kal olde 
Mapvapévous’ mas 8 ay ov veotépw dvdpt pdxouo. 


* Rigveda, vi. 44,17: ‘pra mrina gahi ka,’ strike (them) down 
and kill them, 


THE ROOT MAR. 413 


as a transitive verb, means to wear out; as ndsos 
maratner me, illness wears me out; but it is used 
also as a neuter verb in the sense of to wither away, 
to die away. Hence marasmds, decay, the French 
marasme. The adjective mdlys, formed like mdélos, 
means worn out, feeble, and a new verb, mélynomaz, 
to be worn out, to vanish. 

The Sanskrit mirkh, to faint, is derived from 
mar by a regular process for forming inchoative 
verbs ; it means to begin to die. 


Various Ramifications of the Root Mar. 


Now let us suppose that the ancient Aryans wanted 
to express for the first time what they constantly saw 
around them, namely, the gradual wearing away of 
the human frame, the slow decay which at last is 
followed by a complete breaking up of the body. 
How should they express what we call dying or 
death? One of the nearest ideas that would be 
evoked by the constant impressions of decay and 
death was that expressed by mar, the grinding of 
stone to dust. And thus we find in Latin mor-i-or, 
I die, mortuus, dead, mors, death. In Sanskrit 
mrzye, I die, mrita, dead, mrityu, death. One 
of the earliest names for man was marta, the dying, 
the frail creature, a significant name for man to 
give to himself; in Greek brotés, mortal. Having 
chosen that name for himself, the next step was to 
give the opposite name to the gods, who were called 
dmbrotot, without decay, immortal, and their food 
ambrosia, immortality. In the Teutonic languages 
these words are absent, but that mar was used in the 


4.) 4: ‘CHAPTER VIII. 


sense, if not of dying, at least of killing, we learn 
from the Gothic mauwrthr, the English mwrder. In 
Old Slavonic we find mvréti, to die, mort, pestilence, 
death ; smvritt, death; in Lituanian mir-ti, to die, 
smertis, death. 

If morior in Latin is originally to decay, then what 
causes decay is morbus, illness. 

In Sanskrit the body itself, our frame, is called 
murti, which originally would seem to have meant 
decay or decayed, a corpse, rather than a corpus. 

The Sanskrit marman, a joint, a member, is like- 
wise by Sanskrit grammarians derived from mar. 
Does it mean the decaying members? or is it not 
rather derived from mar in its original sense of 
grinding, so as to express the movement of the articu- 
lated joints? The Latin membrum is menrwm, and 
this possibly by reduplication derived from mar, like 
mémbletar from mélé, mémbléka from mol in émolon, 
the present being bldsko. 

Let us next examine the Latin mdra. It means 
delay, and from it we have the French demeurer, to 
dwell. Now mora was originally applied to time, and 
in mora tenporis we have the natural expression of 
the slow dying away, the gradual wasting away of 
time. ‘Sine mora, without delay, meant originally 
without decay, without loss of time. 

From mar in the secondary but definite sense of 
withering, dying, we have the Sanskrit maru, a 
desert, dead soil. There is another desert, the sea, 
which the Greeks called atrygeton, unfruitful, barren. 
The Aryans had probably not yet seen that watery 
desert before they separated from each other on 


THE ROOT MAR. 415 


leaving their central homes. But when the Romans 
for the first time saw the Mediterranean, they called 
it mdre, and the same word is found among the Celtic, 
the Slavonic, and the Teutonic nations.1 We can 
hardly doubt that their idea in applying this name to 
the sea was the dead or stagnant water, as opposed to 
the running streams (’eaw vive), or the unfruitful 
expanse. Of course there is always some uncertainty 
in these guesses at the original thoughts which guided 
the primitive framers of language. All we can do is 
to guard against mixing together words which may 
have had an independent origin; but if it is once 
established that there is no other root from which 
mare can be derived more regularly than from mar, 
to die (Bopp’s derivation from the Sk. vari, water, is 
not tenable), then we are at liberty to draw some 
connecting line between the root and its offshoot, and 
we need not suppose that in ancient days new words 
were framed less boldly than in our own time. Lan- 
guage has been called by Jean Paul ‘a dictionary of 
faded metaphors’: so it is; and it is the duty of the 
etymologist to try to restore them to their original 
brightness. If, then, in English we can speak of 
dead water, meaning stagnant water, or if the 
French? use eau morte in the same sense, why should 
not the Northern Aryans have derived one of their 
names for the sea from the root mar, to die? Of 
course they would have other names besides, and the 
more poetical the tribe, the richer it would be in 


* Curtius, Zeitschrift, i. 30. Slav. more; Lit. marios and marés ; 
Goth. marei; Ir, muir, 
? Pott, Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, ii. 107. 


416 CHAPTER VIII. 


names for the ocean. The Greeks, who of all Aryan 
nations were most familiar with the sea, called it not 
the dead water, but thdlassa (tardssé), the commotion, 
hdls, the briny, pélagos (pldzé), the tossing, pdntos, 
the high-road.? 

Let us now return to the original sense of mar and 
mal, which was, aS we saw, to grind or to pound, 
chiefly applied to the grinding of corn and to the 
blows of boxers. The Greeks derived from it one of 
their mythological characters, namely, M6olién, a word 
which, according to Hesychius, would mean a fighter 
in general, but which, in the fables of Greece, is chiefly 
known by the two Moltones, the millers, who had one 
body, but two heads, four feet, and four hands. Even 
Herakles could not vanquish them when they fought 
against him in defence of their uncle Awgeias with his 
herd of three thousand oxen. He killed them after- 
wards by surprise. These heroes having been called 
originally Moliones or Molionidae, i.e. pounders, were 
afterwards fabled to have been the sons of Molidné, 
the mill, and Aktor, the corn-man. Some mytholo- 
gists? have identified these twins with thunder and 
lightning, and it is curious that the name of Thor’s 
thunderbolt should be derived from .the same root; 
for the hammer of Thor Midlnir*® means simply the 

1 Curtius, Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, 1. 33. 


? Friedreich, Realien in der Iliade und Odyssee, p. 562; Preller, 
Griechische Mythologie, ii. 165. 

* Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 164, 1171. ‘The holy mawle’ 
(maul, maillet, malleus) is referred by Grimm to the hammer of Thor, 
‘The holy mawle, which they fancy hung behind the church-door, 
which, when the father was seaventie, the sonne might fetch to knock 
his father on the head, as effete and of no more use, —Haupt’s Zeit- 
schrift, v. 72. 


THE ROOT MAR. 417 


smasher. Again, among the Slavonic tribes, molnija 
is a name for lightning; and in the Serbian songs 
Munja is spoken of as the sister of Grom, the thunder, 
and has become a mythological personage. . 
Besides these heroic millers, there is another pair 
of Greek giants, known by the name of Aloadue, Otos, 
and Hphialtes. In their pride they piled Ossa on 
Olympus, and Pelion on Ossa, like another Tower of 
Babel, in order to scale the abode of the gods. They 
were defeated by Apollo. The name of these giants 
has much the same meaning as that of the Moliones. 
It is derived from aldé, a threshing-floor, and means 
threshers. The question, then, is whether aloé, thresh- 
ing-floor, and dlewron and ta dlewra, wheat-flour, can 
be traced back to the root mal. It is sometimes 
said that Greek words may assume an initial m for 
euphony’s sake. That has never been proved. But 
it can be shown by several analogous cases that Greek 
words, originally beginning with m, occasionally drop 
that m. This, no doubt, is a violent change, and a 
change apparently without any physiological necessity, 
as there is no more difficulty in pronouncing an initial 
m than in pronouncing an initial vowel. However, 
there is no lack of analogies in Greek ; and by analo- 
gies we must be guided. Thus mdschos, a tender 
shoot, exists also as dschos or dsché, a young branch. 
Instead of méa, one, in the feminine, we find éa in 
Homer. Nay, instead of our very word dlewron, 
wheaten flour, another form, mdlewron, is mentioned 
by felladius1 Again, if we compare Greek and 


* Cf. Lobeck, Pathologia Grec. Sermonis, p. 112. In Sanskrit ridu 
in ridu-pa, bee, lit. the drinker of sweet things, can hardly be 
anything but a dialectic form of mridu, sweet. 

IL, Ee 


418 CHAPTER VIII. 


Latin, we find that what the Romans called mola— 
namely, meal, or rather the grits of spelt, coarsely 
ground, which were mixed with salt, and thus strewed 
on the victims at sacrifices—were called in Greek oulat 
or olat, though supposed to be barley instead of spelt.’ 
On the strength of these analogies, or, it may be, 
anomalies, we need not hesitate to admit the possi- 
bility of an initial m being dropt in Greek, and this 
would enable us to trace the names both of the 
Moliones and Aloadae back to the root mar, 

We may now take another step. If the Moliones 
and Aloadae2 derive their names from the root mar, 
may we not suppose that Mars, and possibly Ares also, 
the prisoner of the Aloadae, came both from the same 
source? In Sanskrit the root mar yields Marut, the 
storm, literally the pounder or smasher ;* and in the 
character of the Maruts, the companions of Indra in 
his daily battle with Vritra, it is easy to discover the 
germs of martial deities. The same root would fully 
explain the Latin Mars,* Marts; and, if we once 
admit the possible loss of an initial m, the Greek Ares, 


1 Cf. Buttmann, Leailogus, p. 450. 

2 Otos and Ephialtes, the wind (vata) and the hurricane. 

3 Professor Kuhn takes Marut as a participle in at, and explains it 
as dying or dead. He considers the Maruts were originally conceived 
ag the souls of the departed, and that because the souls were conceived 
as ghosts, or spirits, or winds, the Maruts assumed afterwards the 
character of storm-deities. Such a view, however, finds no support in 
the hymns of the Veda. In Pilumnus, the brother of Picumnus, both 
companions of Mars, we have a name of similar import, viz. a pounder. 
Jupiter Pistor, too, was originally the god who crushes with the 
thunderbolt (Preller, Rémische Mythologie, p. 173), and the Mole 
Martis seem to rest on an analogous conception of the nature of Mars. 

* The suffix in Mars, Martis, is different from that in Marut. The 
Sanskrit Mdrut is mar-vat; Mars, Martis, is formed, like pars, 


THE ROOT MAR. 419 


Avreds. Marmar, an old Latin name for Mars, in 
the song of the Arvalian brothers, is a reduplicated 
formation; and in the Oscan Mdmers the r of the 
reduplicated syllable is lost. Mdvors is more difficult 
to explain,’ for there is no instance in Latin of m in 
the middle of a word being changed into v. 

But although etymologically there is no difficulty 
in deriving the Indian name Marut,? the Latin name 
Mars, nay, possibly the Greek name Ares also, from 
one and the same root,’ there is at first sight neither 
in the legends of Mars nor in those of Aves any very 
distinct trace of their having been representatives of 
the storm. Mavs at Rome and Aves in Thracia, though 
their worship was restricted to small territories, both 
assumed there the character of supreme tutelary 
deities. The only connecting link between the classi- 


partis, which happens to correspond with Sanskrit pdr-us or p4r-van. 
The Greek Aras is again formed differently, but the Aiolic form, Areus, 
a possible Sanskrit A ru, would come nearer to Marut. Kuhn, Zeit- 
schrift, i. 376. 

* See Corssen, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, ii. 1-35. 

* Mamurius is the name of a totally different character, the very 
opposite of Mars, 

* That Marut and Mars were radically connected, was first pointed 
out by Professor Kuhn, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, v. 491; but he derived 
both words from mar, in the sense of dying. Other derivations are dis- 
cussed by Corssen, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, ii. 1. He quotes Cicero (Nat. 
Deor. ii. 28): ‘ Jam qui magna verteret Mavors ;’ Cedrenus (Corp. Byz. 
Niebuhr, t.i. p. 295, 21 ff.) : S71 Tov Mdprep of ‘Pwpator pdprep eéxddrouv 
otovel OdvaToy, i) KivnThy TOY Texvav, } Tov Tap’ apfsévov Kal pdvav 
Tipwpevoy ; Varro (L.L. v. § 73, ed. O. Miller). ‘Mars ab eo quod 
maribus in bello preest, aut quod ab Sabinis acceptus, ibi est Mamers.’ 
He himself explains Mars as mas, the male, the creative. He takes 
mdmert and marmar as reduplicated forms, and explains Mdvort by 
Mamort. The typical form would be Mas, and Varro and Priscianus 
have Maspiter for Marspiter. See also Leo Meyer, in Kuhn’s Zeit- 
schrift, v. 387. 

Ee 


Nn 


420 CHAPTER VIII. 


cal deities Mars and Aves and the Indian Maruts is 
their warlike character; and if we take Indra as the 
conqueror of winter, as the destroyer of darkness, as 
the constant victor in the battle against the hostile 
powers of nature, then he, as the leader of the 
Maruts, who act as his army, assumes a more 
marked similarity with Mars, the god of spring, the 
giver of fertility, the destroyer of evil! In Ares, 
Preller, without any thought of the relationship 
between Aves and the Maruts, discovered the personi- 
fication of the sky as excited by storm.’ 

We have hitherto examined the direct offshoots only 
of the root mar, but we have not yet taken into 
account the different modifications to which that root 
itself is hable. This is a subject of considerable im- 


1 See Preller, Rémische Mythologie, p. 300 seq. 

2 Preller, Griechische Mythologie, pp. 202-8: ‘ Endlich deuten aber 
auch verschiedene bildliche Erzihlungen in der Ilias eine solche Natur- 
beziehung an, besonders die Beschreibung der Kampfe zwischen Ares 
und Athena, welche als Gottin der reinen Luft und des Aethers die 
natiirliche Feindin des Ares ist, und gewohnlich sehr unbarmherzig mit 
ihm umgeht. So II. v. 583 ff., wo sie ihn durch Diomedes verwundet, 
Ares aber mit solchem Getése niederrasselt (€8paye), wie neuntausend 
oder zehntausend Minner in der Schlacht zu larmen pflegen, worauf er 
als dunkles Gewolk zum Himmel emporfahrt. Ebenso Il. xxi. 400 ff, 
wo Athena den Ares durch einen Steinwurf verwundet, er aber fallt und 
bedeckt sieben Morgen Landes im Fall, und seine Haare vermischen 
sich mit dem Staube, seine Waffen rasseln: was wieder ganz den Ein- 
druck eines solchen alten Naturgemildes macht, wo die Ereignisse der 
Natur, Donnerwetter, Wolkenbruch, gewaltiges Stiirmen und Brausen 
in der Luft als Acte einer himmlischen Gottergeschichte erscheinen, in 
denen gewohnlich Zeus, Hera, Athena, Hephistos, Ares und Hermes 
als die handlenden Personen auftreten. Indessen ist diese allgemeine 
Bedeutung des Ares bald vor der speciellen des blutigen Kriegsgottes 
zurtickgetreten.’ See also Il. xx. 51: Ate & “Apns érépwbev, epeur7 
Aaidam ioos. Il, ix. 4: 

‘Ns & dvepor S00 wévTov dpiverov ixOvdevta, 
Bopéns kai Zepupos, Tw Te OpyknOev anrov, 


THE ROOT MAR. 421: 


portance, though at the same time beset with oreat 
difficulties and uncertainties. Hindu grammarians 
have reduced the whole wealth of their language to 
about 1,700 roots. These roots once granted, they 
maintained that there remained not a single word 
unexplained in Sanskrit. But the fact is that many 
of these roots are clearly themselves derivatives. 
Thus, besides yu, to join, we find yug, to join, and 
yudh, to join in battle. Here g and dh are clearly 
modificatory letters, which must originally have had 
some meaning. Another root, yaut, in the sense of 
joiming or glueing together, must likewise be con- 
sidered as a dialectic variety of yug.! 

Let us apply this to our root MAR. As yu forms 
yudh, so will mar form mardh or mrédh, and this 
root exists in Sanskrit in the sense of destroying, 
killing ; hence mvidh, enemy.” 

Again, as yu produces yug, so mar might produce 
marg ormrig. This is a root of very common occur- 
rence. It means to rub, but not in the sense of destroy- 
ing, like mridh and mrin, but in the sense of cleaning 
or purifying. This is its usual meaning in Sanskrit, 
and it explains, for instance, the Sanskrit name 
for cat, namely, margAra, literally the animal that 
always rubs or cleans itself. In Greek we find omorg- 
ny-mi in the same sense. But this general meaning 
became still more defined in Greek, Latin, German, and 
Slavonic, and by changing ” into 7 the root malg was 
formed, meaning to rub or stroke the udder of the 


* This subject has been more fully treated in Science of Thought, 
pp. 850 seq. 
* Rigveda, vi. 53, 4: ‘vi mridhah gahiy,’ kill the enemies. 


4:22 CHAPTER VIII. 


cow, i.e. to milk. Thus mélgd, and amelgo, in Greek, 
mean to milk; in Latin, mulgére has the same 
meaning. In Old High-German we find the substan- 
tive milchu, and from it new verbal derivatives in the 
sense of milking. In Lituanian, milzti means both 
to milk and to stroke. These two cognate meanings 
are kept asunder in Latin by mulgére, as distinct from 
mulcére, to stroke, and we thus discover a third modi- 
fication of mar with final palatal s, viz. mars. This 
root expresses in Sanskrit the idea of gentle stroking, 
and with certain prepositions comes to mean to re- 
volve, to meditate, to think. In the Latin marcus, 
a large hammer or pestle, on the contrary, the funda- 
mental idea is not that of gentle stroking, but of 
violent strokes. Marcus, like Marcius, Marcianus, 
and Marcellus, became a proper name, and occurs 
again in later times in the name of Charles Martel. 

The verb marcere has a different history altogether. 
We saw that the root mar meant originally the 
gradual wearing away of the human body. Marcere 
exhibits the same idea in a secondary form. It means 
to droop, to faint, to fade. From it marcidus, 
withered, feeble. In Greek we have the adjective 
malakos, which may be related. It means soft and 
smooth, originally rubbed down or polished; and it 
comes to mean at last feeble, sick, or effeminate.! 

One of the most regular modifications of mar 
would be mra, and this, under the form of mlAa, 
means in Sanskrit to wither, to fade away. In 
Greek, ml being frequently rendered by bl, we can 


* Cf, Latin lévis; dpards, if for paparos, soft, may belong to the same 
root. We have to consider, however, the Attic dyadds. 


THE ROOT MAR. 4.23 


hardly be wrong in referring to this base bldéa, mean- 
ing slack in body and in mind, and the Gothic 
malsk-s, foolish.! Soft and foolish are used synony- 
mously in many languages, nor is it at all unlikely 
that the Greek mdvos, foolish, may come from our 
root mar, and have meant at first soft. 

Here we see how different meanings play into each 
other, A violent blow and a soft stroke share almost 
the same name, and what from one point of view is 
looked upon as worn down and destroyed, is from 
another point of view considered as smooth and bril- 
liant. We saw that in omdrgnymi the meaning fixed 
upon was that of rubbing or wiping clean, in amélgéd 
that of rubbing or milking; and we can see how a 
third sense, that of rubbing in the sense of hurting, 
tearing off or plucking off, is expressed in Sanskrit by 
mark, to hurt, in Greek by mérgé or amérgé. 

If we suppose our root mar strengthened by means 
of a final labial, instead of the final guttural which 
we have just been considering, we have maz, a base 
frequently used by Greek poets. It is generally 
translated by catching (and wrongly identified with 
harpdzo), but we perceive traces of its original mean- 
ing in such expressions as géras émarpse,? old age 
ground him down; chthéna marpte podotin (Il. xvi. 
228), he struck or pounded the earth with his feet. 

Let us keep to this new base, muvp, and consider 
that it may assume the forms of malp and mlap; let 
us then remember that ml, in Greek, is interchange- 
able with 61, and we arrive at the new base, blup, 


1 Curtius, G. Z. 1. 303. 2 Od. xxiv. 390. 


424, CHAPTER VIII. 


well known in the Greek bldptd, I damage, I hinder, 
Imar. This b/dépto still lives in the English to blame, 
the French bldmer, for blasmer, which is a corruption 
of blasphémer. The Greek blasphémetn, again, stands 
for blapsiphémein, i.e. to use damaging words; and 
in blapst we see the verb bldpté, the legitimate off- 
spring of our root mar. 

One of the most prolific descendants of mar is the 
root mard. It occurs in Sanskrit as mrzdnati, and 
as mradati, in the sense of rubbing down; but it is 
likewise used, particularly if joined with prepositions, 
in the sense of to squash, to overcome, to conquer. 
From this root we have the Sanskrit mrzdu, soft! 
(also rzdu), the Latin mollis (mard, mald, mall), the 
Old Slavonic mladu (maldu), and, though formed by 
a different suffix, the English mellow. In all these 
words what is ground down to powder was used as 
the representative of smoothness, and was readily 
transferred to moral gentleness and kindness. Dust 
itself was called by the same root in its simplest form, 
namely, mrid, which, after meaning dust, came to 
mean soil in general, or earth, Mvritsna also means 
dust in Sanskrit. 

The Gothic malma, sand, belongs to the same class 
of words ; so does the Modern German zermalmen, to 
grind to pieces, and the Gothic maluyan, used by 
Ulfilas in the same sense. 

In Latin this root has thrown out several offshoots. 
Matleus, a hammer, stands probably for mardeus ; and 


* Curtius (G. H. p. 222) points out the analogous case of Greek Tépny, 
tender, if derived from rep, as in teipw. If so, terra also, dust, might be 
explained like Sanskrit 1u:74d, dust, earth. 


te 


THE ROOT MAR. 425 


even martellus, unless it stands for marcellus, claims 
the same kin. In a secondary form we find our root 
in Latin as mordeére, to bite, originally to grind or 
wolry. 

In English, to smart has been well compared with 
mordeére, the s being a formative letter with which we 
shall meet again.! ‘A wound smarts, means a wound 
bites or hurts. It is thus applied to every sharp pain, 
and in German Schmerz means pain in general.” 

This root mard, the Greek méldé, to make liquid, 
assumes in English regularly the form malt or melt; 
nor is there any doubt that the English to melt meant 
originally to make soft, if not by the blows of the 
hammer, at least by the licking of the fire, and the 
absorbing action of the heat. Mulciber, a name of 
Vulcan, means the smelter, and is derived from mul- 
cere.” The German schmelzen hag the same power, 
and is used both as a transitive and an intransitive 
verb. Now let us watch the clever ways of language. 
An expression was wanted for the softening influence 
which man exercises on man by looks, gestures, words, 
or prayers. What could be done? The same root 
was taken which had conveyed before the idea of 
smoothing a rough surface, of softening a hard sub- 
stance ; and, with a slight modification, the root mard 
became fixed as the Sanskrit mrzd, or mril, to 
soften, to propitiate. It was used in that sense 
chiefly with regard to the gods, who were to be pro- 


* See Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, ii. p. 701. 

Cf. Ebel, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vii. 226, where opepSadéos is like- 
wise traced to this root, and the Gothic marzjan, to mar. See also 
Benary, Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, iv. 48. 

° Corssen, Beitrdge, p. 356. 


426 CHAPTER VIII. 


pitiated by prayers and sacrifices. It was likewise 
used in an intransitive sense of the gods themselves, 
who were implored to melt, to become softened and 
gracious ; and prayers which we now translate by 
‘Be gracious to us, meant originally ‘Melt to us, O 
gods.’ * 

From this source springs the Gothic mld, the Eng- 
lish mild, originally soft or gentle. The Lituanian 
takes from it its name for love, meile; and in Greek 
we find metlia, gladdening gifts or appeasements, and 
such derivatives as mezlissé, to soothe, and metlichos, 
gentle. 

This was one aspect of the process of melting; but 
there was a second, equally natural, namely, that of 
melting or dying away in the sense of desiring, yearn- 
ing, grieving after a thing. We might say a man 
melts in love, in grief (in German er zerschmuilzt, er 
vergeht vor Lvebe), and the Greeks said in the same 
sense meledainéd, I melt, i.e. I care for, meledoné, 
anxiety, grief. Melddémenos, too, is explained by 
Hesychius in the sense of desiring.2?. But more than 
this. We saw before that there is sufficient evi- 
dence for the occasional disappearance of the initial 
m in the root mar. We therefore are justified in 
identifying the Greek é/domaz with an original mél- 
domai. And what does é/domai mean in Greek ? 
It means to die for a thing, to desire a thing ;? 
that is to say, it means exactly what it ought to 


1 Rigveda, vi. 51,5: ‘Vasavah mrilata nah.’ 

2 Cf. Curtius, G. EH. ii, 167. 

§ In Wallachian, dor means desire, but it is in reality the same as 
Italian duolo, pain. Cf. Diez, s.v. Analogous constructions in Latin, 
Corydon ardebat Alexin, 


THE ROOT MAR. AQYy, 


mean if it is derived from the root which we have in 
méldé, I melt. 

We have, while engaged in these investigations, met 
on several occasions with an s prefixed to mar, and 
we have treated it simply as a modificatory element — 
added for the purpose of distinguishing words which 
it was felt desirable to keep distinct. Without in- 
quiring into the real origin of this s, which has formed 
the subject of violent disputes between Professors 
Pott and Curtius, we may take it for granted that the 
Sanskrit root smar is closely related to the root mar; 
nor is it difficult! to discover how the meaning of 
smar, namely, to remember, could have been ela- 
borated out of mar, to grind. We saw over and over 
again that the idea of melting glided into that of 
loving, hoping, and desiring, and we shall find that 
the original meaning of smar in Sanskrit is to desire, 
to brood, not to remember. Thus Sanskrit smara is 
love, very much like the Lituanian med/e, love, i.e. 
melting. From this meaning of desiring, new mean- 
ings branched off, such as dwelling on, brooding over, 
musing over, and then recollecting. In the other 
Aryan languages the initial s does not appear. We 
have memor in Latin, memoria, memorare, all in the 
special sense of remembering ; but in Greek mermatré 
means simply I brood, I care, | mourn; mérimna is 


1 Curtius mentions smar as one of the roots which, if not from the 
beginning, ‘ had, at all events before the Aryan separation, assumed an 
entirely intellectual meaning. —G’, E. i. 84. - 

? Panini, Dhatupatha, 19, 46: ‘smri Aadhyane, Vp. autkye,’ 
which Colebrooke translates by to regret or remember with tenderness. 
Madhava explains the term by utkantha-pirvakam smaranam, 
recollection preceded by longing, 


428 CHAPTER VITI. 


anxiety, and even mdrtyr need not necessarily mean 
a man who remembers, but a man who cares for, who 
cherishes, who holds a thing.? 

Strange as it may seem, the same root which after 
expressing desiring and brooding, came to mean to re- 
member, lent itself likewise to the expression of the idea 
of forgetting. In this case we must go back to the 
fundamental idea-of mar, which was to fade away, to 
decay in an intransitive sense. This, applied transi- 
tively, would naturally come to mean to forget. Thus 
mardh in Sanskrit means to forget, marsh comes to 
mean, not only to forget, but not to mind, to bear, to 
forgive. Nay, mrisha is a common adverb, meaning 
in vain. 

In unravelling this cluster of words, it has been my 
chief object to trace the gradual growth of ideas, the 
slow progress of the mind from the single to the 
general, from the material to the spiritual, from the 
concrete to the abstract. To rub down or to polish 
leads to the idea of propitiation; to wear off or to 
wither are expressions applied to the consuming feel- 
ing of hopes deferred and hearts sickening, and ideas 
like memory and martyrdom are clothed in words 
taken from the same source. From the very nature 
of these inquiries into the growth and ramifications of 
the meaning of roots, it follows that they can be 
hypothetical only. Into the question of the formal 
modifications of the root mar I do not mean to enter 
here. But whatever view we take, whether we look 


' Cf. iopwpos, éyxeoipwpos, in the sense of caring for arrows, spears, 
&e., Benary, Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, iv. 53; and toropes Oeol,”Aypavaos, 
’EvudAwos, “Apns, Zevs, Preller, Griechische Mythologie, p. 205. 


THE ROOT MAR. 429 


upon marg, mard, mardh, mars, marsh as sur- 
vivals of an even larger number of parallel roots, or 
as derivatives ' from one common root, we can hardly 
doubt their more or less distant relationship. And if | 
that is granted, all we can do is to discover, if pogsi- 
ble, the more or less hidden passages through which 
the human mind arrived from one very simple concept, 
at ideas apparently so distant from one another as to 
remember, to forget, to die and to love, to hurt and 
to soften. 

The fates and fortunes of this one root mar form 
but a small chapter in the history and growth of the 
Aryan languages ; but we may derive from this small 
chapter some idea as to the power and elasticity of 
roots, and the unlimited sway of metaphor in the 
formation of new ideas. 


* Thus Brugmann, in his Grundriss, § 404, takes marsh, to forget, as 
possibly formed by composition, mrsdé being assimilated to mrz-do. 


CHAS ee his yale 


METAPHOR. 


Locke on Language. 


EW philosophers have so clearly perceived the 

importance of language in all the operations of 
the human mind, few have so constantly insisted on 
the necessity of watching the influence of words on 
thought as Locke in his Essay concerning Human 
Understanding. Of the four books into which this 
great work is divided, one, the third, is entirely de- 
voted to Words or Language in general. At the time 
when Locke wrote, but little attention had been paid 
to the philosophy of language, and the author, afraid 
that he might seem to have given more prominence 
to this subject than it deserved, thought it necessary 
to defend himself against such a charge in the fol- 
lowing words :— 

What I have here said concerning words in this third book 
will possibly be thought by some to be much more than what 
so slight a subject required. I allow it might be brought into 
a narrower compass; but I was willing to stay my reader on an 
argument that appears to me new, and a little out of the way 
(I am sure it is one I thought not of when I began to write) ; 
that by searching it to the bottom, and turning it on every side, 
some part or other might meet with every one’s thoughts, and 


give occasion to the most averse or negligent to reflect on a 
general miscarriage, which, though of great consequence, is 


METAPHOR. 431 


little taken notice of. When it is considered what a pudder is 
made about essences, and how much all sorts of knowledge, 
discourse, and conversation are pestered and disordered by the 
careless and confused use and application of words, it will, per- 
haps, be thought worth while thoroughly to lay it open. And 
I shall be pardoned if I have dwelt long on an argument which 
I think, therefore, needs to be inculeated; because the faults 
men are usually guilty of in this kind are not only the createst 
hindrances of true knowledge, but are so well thought of as to 
pass for it. Men would often see what a small pittance of 
reason and truth, or possibly none at all, is mixed with those 
huffing opinions they are swelled with, if they would but look 
beyond fashionable sounds, and observe what ideas are, or are 
not, comprehended under those words with which they are so 
armed at all points, and with which they so confidently lay 
about them. I shall imagine I have done some service to truth, 
peace, and learning, if, by an enlargement on this subject, I 
can make men reflect on their own use of language, and give 
them reason to suspect, that since it is frequent for others, it 
may also be possible for them, to have sometimes very good 
and approved words in their mouths and writings, with very 
uncertain, little, or no signification. And, therefore, it is not 
unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves, and not to 
be unwilling to have these examined by others. 


And again, when summing up the results of his 
inquiries, Locke says: 


For since the things the mind contemplates are none of 
them, besides itself, present to the understanding, it is neces- 
sary that something else, as a sign or representation of the 
thing it considers, should be present to it ; and these are ideas. 
And because the scene of ideas that make one man’s thoughts 
cannot be laid open to the immediate view of another, nor laid 
up anywhere but in the memory—a no very sure repository— 
therefore, to communicate our thoughts to one another, as well 
as record them for our own use, signs of our ideas are also 
necessary. ‘Those which men have found most convenient, and 


* Locke, On the Understanding, iii. 5, 16. 


432 CHAPTER IX. 


therefore generally make use of, are articulate sounds. The 
consideration, then, of ideas and words as the great instruments of 
knowledge, makes no despicable part of their consideration, who 
would take a view of human knowledge in the whole extent of it. 
And, perhaps, if they were distinctly weighed and duly considered 
they would afford us another sort of logic and critic, than what we 
have been hitherto acquainted with. 


But, although so strongly impressed with the im- 
portance which language, as such, claims in the ope- 
rations of the understanding, Locke himself never 
gave a clear definition of ideas as distinguished from 
words, and he never seemed to have perceived that the 
two are inseparable, that the one cannot exist with- 
out the other, and that an arbitrary imposition of 
articulate sounds to signify definite ideas, is an 
assumption unsupported by any evidence. Locke 
never seems to have realised the intricacies of the 
naming, or, as he would prefer to say, names-giving 
process, and though he admits frequently the difficulty, 
nay, sometimes, the impossibility, of our handling any 
general ideas without the outward signs of language, 
he never questions for a moment the received theory 
that at some time or other in the History of the 
world men had accumulated a treasure of anonymous 
general conceptions, to which, when the time of in- 
tellectual and social intercourse had arrived, they 
skilfully attached those phonetic labels which we call 
words. : 


The Historical School. 
The age in which Locke lived and wrote was not 


partial to those inquiries into the early history of 
mankind which have, during the last two generations, 


METAPHOR. 433 


engaged the attention of the most eminent philoso- 
phers. Instead of gathering the fragments of the 
primitive language, poetry, and religion, not only of 
the Greeks and Romans, but of all the nations of the. 
world, and instead of trying to penetrate, as far as 
possible, into the real and actual life of the fathers of 
the human race, and thus to learn how both in our 
thoughts and words we came to be what we are, the 
great schools of philosophy in the 18th century were 
satisfied with building up theories how language 
might have sprung into life, how religion might have 
been revealed or invented, how mythology might 
have been put together by priests, or poets, or states- 
men, for the purposes of instruction, of amusement, 
or of fraud. Such systems, though ingenious and 
plausible, and still in full possession of many of our 
handbooks of history and philosophy, will have to give 
way to the spirit of what may be called the Historical 
School of the 19th century. The principles of these 
two schools are diametrically opposed; the one begins 
with theories without facts, the other with facts with- 
out theories. The systems of Locke, Voltaire, and 
Rousseau, and in later times of Comte, are plain, intelli- 
gible, and perfectly rational; the facts collected by men 
like Wolf, Herder, Niebuhr, F. Schlegel, W. von Hum- 
boldt, Bopp, Burnouf, Grimm, Bunsen, and others, are 
fragmentary, the inductions to which they point in- 
complete and obscure, and opposed to many of our 
recéived ideas. Nevertheless, the study of the anti- 
quity of man, the Paleontology of the human mind, 
can never again be allowed to become the playground 
of mere theorisers, however bold and brilliant, but 
i8e Ff 


43,4, CHAPTER IX. 


must henceforth be cultivated in accordance with 
those principles that have produced rich harvests in 
other fields of inductive research. It is no want of 
respect for the great men of former ages to say that 
they would have written differently if they had lived 
in our days. Locke, with the results of Comparative 
Philology before him, would have cancelled, I believe, 
the whole of his third book ‘On the Human Under- 
standing ;’ and even his zealous and ingenious pupil, 
Horne Tooke, would have given us a very different 
volume of ‘ Diversions of Purley.’ But in spite of this, 
there are no books which with all their faults—nay, 
on account of these very faults—are so instructive to 
the student of language as Locke's Essay, and Horne 
Tooke’s Diversions; nay, there are many points bear- 
ing on the later growth of language which they have 
handled and cleared up with greater mastery than 
even those who came after them. 


Material Meaning of Words. 


Thus the fact that all words expressive of im- 
material conceptions are derived by metaphor from 
words expressive of sensuous ideas was for the first 
time clearly and definitely put forward by Locke, and 
is now fully confirmed by the researches of compa- 
rative philologists. All roots, i.e. all the material 
elements of language, are expressive of sensuous im- 
pressions, and of sensuous impressions only; and as 
all words, even the most abstract and sublime,-are 
derived from roots, comparative philology fully en- 
dorses the conclusions arrived at by Locke. This is 
what Locke says (ili. 2, 5): 


METAPHOR. 7 435 


It may also lead us a little toward the original of all our 
notions and knowledge, if we remark, how great a dependence 
our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those, 
which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite 
removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and, from 
obvious sensible ideas, are transferred to more abstruse signifi- 
cations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the 
cognisance of our senses: e.g. to imagine, apprehend, compre- 
hend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &e., 
are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and 
applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary 
signification, is breath; angel, a messenger; and I doubt not, 
but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all 
languages, the names which stand for things that fall not under 
our senses, to have their first rise from sensible ideas. By which 
we may give some kind of guess, what kind of notions they were 
and whence derived, which filled their minds, who were the 
first beginners of languages; and how nature, even in the 
naming of things, unawares suggested to men the originals and 
principles of all their knowledge ; whilst, to give names, that 
might make known to others any operations they felt in them- 
selves, or any other ideas that come not under their senses, they 
were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensa- 
tion, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive 
those operations they experimented in themselves, which made 
no outward sensible appearances ; and then, when they had got 
known and agreed names, to signify these internal operations 
of their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make 
known by words all their other ideas, since they could consist 
of nothing but either of outwafd sensible perceptions, or of the 
inward operations of their minds about them; we having, as 
has been proved, no ideas at all, but what originally came either 
from sensible objects without, or what we feel within ourselves 
from the inward workings of our own spirits, of which we are 
conscious to ourselves within. 


This passage, though somewhat involved and ob- 
scure, 18 a classical passage, and has formed the 
subject of many commentaries, both favourable and 

Bt 2 


436 CHAPTER IX. 


unfavourable. Some of Locke's followers, particularly 
Horne Tooke, used the statement that all abstract 
words had originally a material meaning, in order to 
prove that all our knowledge was restricted to sen- 
suous knowledge; and such was the apparent cogency 
of their arguments, that, to the present day, those 
who are opposed to materialistic theories consider it 
necessary to controvert the facts alleged by Locke 
and Horne Tooke, instead of examining the cogency 
of the consequences that are supposed to flow from 
them. Now the facts stated by Locke seem to be 
above all doubt. Spiritus is certainly derived from a 
verb spirare, which means to draw breath. The same 
applies to animus. Animus, the mind, as Cicero says," 
is so called from anima, air. The root is an, which in 
Sanskrit means to blow, and which has given rise to 
the Sanskrit and Greek words for wind, an-ila and 
dn-emos. Thus the Greek thymds, the soul, comes 
from thyein, to rush, to move violently, the Sanskrit 
dha, to shake. From dht we have in Sanskrit dhtli, 
dust, which comes from the same root, and dhtma, 
smoke, the Latin fumus. In Greek, the same root 
supplied thiella, storm-wind, and thymds, the soul, as 
the seat of the passions.. Plato guesses correctly 
when he says (Crat. p. 419) that thymds, soul, is so 
called amd rijs Odoews Kal oews THs Woyts. Lo vmagine 
certainly meant in its original conception to make 
pictures, to picture to ourselves; but even to picture 
is far too mixed an idea to have been expressed by a 


1 Cicero, Tuscul. i. 9, sub fin. Locke, Human Understanding, iv. 
8, 6, note (ed. London, 1836, p. 412). ‘Anima sit animus ignisve 
nescio,’ &c, ‘ 


METAPHOR. 437 


simple root. Imago, picture, stands for mimago, as 
vmitor for mimitor, the Greek minéomai, all from a 
root md, to measure, and therefore meaning originally 
to measure again and again, to copy, to imitate. To 
apprehend and to comprehend meant to grasp at a 
thing and to grasp a thing together; to adhere to 
one’s opinions was literally to stick to ante opinions ; 
to conceive was to take and hold together; to instil 
was to drop or pour in; to disgust was to create a 
bad taste; to disturb was to throw into disorder; 
and tranquillity was calmness, and particularly the 
smoothness of the sea. 4 

Look at any words expressive of objects which 
cannot fall under the immediate cognisance of the 
senses, and you will not have much difficulty in test- 
ing the truth of Locke’s assertion that such words 
are invariably derived from others which originally 
were meant to express the objects of the senses. 

I begin with a list of Kafir metaphors :— 


Words, Literal meaning, Figurative meaning. 
beta. ; - beat . : : . punish 
dhlelana ‘ . to eat together . . to be on terms of 
; intercourse 
fa . : - to be dying ; . to be sick 
UE Ture ye : . to sit. ? : . to dwell, live, con- 
tinue 
ihlati’ . ; mbusha, ‘ : . refuge 
ingcala . 4 . flying-ant . r uncommon dexterity 
inncwadi . . kind of bulbous those book, glass 
inja : : Ol. ; . a dependant 
kolwa . ; . to be entiehcd : . to believe 
lila ; ‘ mLOCry. : : . to mourn 
mnandi . -._. sweet 5 ‘ . pleased, agreeable 


_gauka . : . tobe snapped : sede: to be quite dead 


438 CHAPTER IX. 


Words. Literal meaning. Figurative meaning. 
unsila . , se tail ae : ; . court messenger 
zidhla . , . to eat oneself . . to be proud 
akasiboni. . he does not see us. he is above noticing 

us 
nikela indhlebe . give the ears. . listen attentively 
ukudhla ubomi__.._ to eat life . . . to live 
ukudhla umntu. to eat a person . . to confiscate his pro- 
perty 
ukumgekeza inkloko, to break his head . to weary one 
ukunuka umntu .tosmellaperson .to accuse one of 


witchcraft ! 


In New Guinea ‘to have pity’ can only be expressed 
by a word which means originally ‘to have a stomach- 
ache. 2 Our own word tribulation, anxiety, is derived 
from tribulwm, a sledge used by the ancient Romans 
for rubbing out the corn, consisting of a wooden plat- 
form, studded underneath with sharp pieces of flint 
or with iron teeth.? The similarity between the state 
of mind that had to be expressed and the state of the 
grains of corn shaken in a tribulwm is evident, and 
so striking that, if once used, it was not likely to be 
forgotten again. This tribulwm, again, is derived 
from the verb tereve, to rub or grind. Tribulare is 
used by Tertullian in the sense of oppressing.* Now 
suppose a man’s mind so oppressed with the weight of 
his former misdeeds that he can hardly breathe, or 
look up, or resist the pressure, but feels crushed and 
ground to dust within himself, that man would 
describe his state of mind as a state of contrition, 


1 Appleyard, J. c. p. 70. 

2 See Introduction to Lawes, Motu Grammar, 1865. 
3 See White, Latin-English Dictionary, s. v. 

$ Diez, Grammatik, p. 27. 


METAPHOR. 439 


_ which means ‘being ground to pieces, from the same 
verb terere, to grind. 

The French penser, to think, is the Latin pensare, 
which would mean to weigh, and lead us back to 
pendeére, to lift, to weigh.! ‘To bein suspense’ literally 
means to be hung up, and swaying to and fro. ‘To. 
suspend judgment’ means to hang it up, to keep it 
from taking effect. 

Doubt, again, the Latin dubiwm, expresses literally 
the position between two points, from duo, just as 
the German Zweifel points back to zwei, two. In 
Sanskrit doubt is expressed by samsaya, i.e. lying 
together, or sandeha, sticking together. 

To believe is generally identified with the German 
belieben, to be pleased with a thing, or erlauben, to 
approve ; the Latin /zbet, it pleases. But to believe, as 
well as the German glauben, meant originally more 
than simply to approve of a thing. Both words must 
be traced back to the word lwbh, which has retained 
its original meaning in the Sanskrit lobha, desire, 
and the Latin /zbido, violent, irresistible desire.2 The 
same root was afterwards taken to express that irre- 
sistible passion of the soul, which makes man break 
through the evidence of the senses and the laws of 
reason (credo quia absurdum), and drives him, by a 
power which nothing can control, to embrace some 
truth which alone can satisfy the natural cravings of 
his being. This is belief in its truest sense, though it 
dwindles down in the course of time to mean no more 


1 See Biographies of Words, p. 65. 
2 «Der Glaube ist wie die Liebe: er lasst sich nicht erzwingen.’ 
—Schopenhauer, Parerga, ii. 326. 


4.4.0 CHAPTER IX. 


than to suppose, or to be pleased, just as I love, which 
is derived from the same root as to believe, comes to 
mean, I like. 

Truth has been explained by Horne Tooke as that 
which a man troweth. This, however, would explain 
very little. Zo trow is but a derivative verb, mean- 
ing to make or hold a thing true. But what is true?1 
True, Goth. triggw-s, is connected with the Sk. root 
darh, to be firm, and meant originally firm, solid, 
anything that will hold. 

Another word for true in Sanskrit is satya, an 
adjective formed from the participle present of the 
auxiliary verb as, to be. Sat corresponds to the 
Latin ens, being; from it satya, true, the Greek 
eteds,” the A.S. sdth, English sooth, as in soothsayer, 
Jorsooth, &c. If I say that sat corresponds to the Latin 
ens, the similarity may not seem very striking. Yet 
Latin ens clearly stands for sens, which appears in 
pre-sens.? The nominative singular of sat is san, 
because in Sanskrit we cannot have a word ending in 
ns. But the accusative sing. is santam=sentem, 
the nom. plur. santa =sentes; so that there can be 
no doubt as to the identity of the two words in 
Sanskrit and Latin. 


* Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vii. 62; Leo Meyer, Goth. Sprache, § 29. 

* See Pott, Htymologische Forschungen, ii. p. 364; Kern, in Kuhn’s 
Zeitschrift, viii. 400. It should be remembered that in satya, the t 
belongs to the base, and that the derivative element is not tya, Greek 
ows, but ya. Whether eds represents the same suffix as ya in Sanskrit 
may be doubtful. See, however, Bopp, Vergleich. Gr. (2), § 109 a, 2 
(p. 212); and § 956. Sattva in Sanskrit means being and a being, 

° Essentia is a word formed in defiance of the rules of philology. It 
was meant to express the Greek ovoia, in which case it ought to have 
been entia, Seneca, Hp. 58, holds Cicero responsible for the word. 


METAPHOR. 44) 


And how did language express what, if it were a 
rational conception at all, would seem to be the most 
immaterial of all conceptions—namely, nothing? It 
was expressed in the only way in which it could be 
expressed—namely, by the negation of, or the com- 
parison with, something real and tangible. It was 
called in Sanskrit asat, that which ig not; in Latin 
nihil, i.e. nihilum,2 which stands for nifilum, i.e. Ne- 
filum, and means ‘not a thread or shred.’ In French 
rien is actually a mere corruption of rem, the accusa- 
tive of ves, and retains its negative sense even without 
the negative particle by which it was originally 
preceded. Thus ne-pas is non-passwm, not a step ; 
ne-point is non-punctum, not a point. The French 
néant, Italian niente, are the Latin non ens. And 


* ‘Denique vox heec nihil nomen est, rei tamen nomen esse non potest. 
Nam si e. g. subducentes binarium et ternarium ex quinario, non vide- 
mus ullum residuum, si illius subductione meminisse velimus, oratio 
hee nihil residuum est, et in illa nomen nihil inutile non est. Propter 
eandem rationem etiam minus quam nihil dicetur recta de residuo, ubi 
majus detrahitur a minore. Hujusmodi enim residua doctrinae causa 
fingit sibi animus, cupitque, quoties opus est, in memoriam revocare,’ 
Hobbes, Logica, i. 2, 6. 

* Cf. Kuhn, Zeitschrift, 1.544. Dietrich mentions similar cases of 
shortening, such as cognitus and nétus, pejéro and jaro. Bopp has 
clearly given up the etymology of nihil, which he proposed in the first 
edition of his Comparative Grammar, as it is suppressed in the second. 
It is to be regretted that Mr. White, in his Latin-English Die- 
tionary, should continue to quote from the first edition only of Bopp’s 
work. As to h taking the place of f, we know that in Spanish Latin f 
is frequently represented by h, e.g. hablar =fabulari, hijo=filius, 
hierro=ferrum, hilo=filum. Instead of filit we find tAAc in Trinchera, 
p. 194. In Latin itself, too, these two letters are occasionally inter- 
changed. Instead of hircus, the Sabines said fircus ; instead of hedus, 
fedus; instead of harena, farena. N ay, double forms are mentioned 
in Latin, such as hordeum and fordeum; hostis and fostis ; hariolus 
and fariolus. See Corssen, Aussprache der Lateinischen Sprache, p. 46. 


4.4.2 CHAPTER IX. 


now observe for a moment how fables will grow up 
under the charm of language. It was perfectly cor- 
rect to say, ‘I give you nothing, i.e. ‘I give you not 
even a shred.’ Here we are speaking of a relative 
nothing ; in fact, we only deny something, or decline 
to give something. It is likewise perfectly correct 
to say, on stepping into an empty room, ‘There is 
nothing here, meaning not that there is absolutely 
nothing, but only that things which we expect to 
find in a room are not there. But by dint of using 
such phrases over and over again, a vague idea is 
gradually formed in the mind of a Nothing, and Vzhil 
becomes the name of something positive and real. 
People at a very early time began to talk of the 
Nothing,’ as if it were a something; and they 
gradually brought themselves to tremble at the idea 
of annihilation—an idea utterly inconceivable, except 
in the brain of a madman. Annihilation, if it meant 
anything, could etymologically—and in this case, we 
may add, logically too—mean nothing but to be re- 
duced to a something which is not a shred—surely no 
very fearful state, considering that in strict logic it 
would comprehend the whole realm of existence, ex- 


1 Mill on Hamilton, p. 346, quotes Hamilton as saying: ‘We can 
conceive no real annihilation, no absolute sinking of something into 
nothing.’ Mill says: ‘ If our incapacity of conceiving annihilation only 
means that we cannot represent to ourselves an universe devoid of 
existence, I do not deny it. Whatever else we may suppose removed, 
there always remains the conception of empty space, and Sir W. H. is 
probably right in his opinion, that we cannot imagine even empty space 
without clothing it mentally with some sort of colour or figure. But we 
can conceive both a beginning and an end to all physical existence. 
As a mere hypothesis, the notion that matter cannot be annihilated, 
arose early.’ 


METAPHOR. 443 


clusive only of what is meant by shred. Yet what 
speculations, what fears, what ravings, have sprung 
from this word Nihidd—a mere word, and nothing 
else! We see things grow and decay, we witness the 
birth and death of living things, but we never see 
anything lost or annihilated. Now, what does not 
fall within the cognisance of our senses, and what 
contradicts every principle of our reasoning faculties, 
has no right to be expressed in language. We may 
use the names of material objects to express im- 
material objects, if they can be rationally conceived. 
We can conceive, for instance, powers not within the 
ken of our senses, yet endowed with a material reality. 
We can call them spirits, literally breezes, though we 
understand perfectly well that by spirits we mean 
something else than mere breezes. We can call 
them shadows or shades, though we mean something 
very different from a mere negation of light. But a 
Nothing, an absolute Nothing, that is neither visible, 
nor conceivable, nor imaginable, ought never to have 
found expression, ought never to have been admitted 
into the dictionary of rational beings. 

Now, if we consider how people talk about the 
Nothing, how poets make it the subject of the most 
harrowing strains ;! how it has been, and still is, one 
of the principal ingredients in most systems of philo- 
sophy—nay, how it has been dragged into the domain 
of religious thought, and, under the name of Nirvava, 


1 ¢The thought of an immense abysmal Nothing is awful, only less 
so than that of All and God; and thus a grain of sand, being a fact, a 
reality, rises before us into something prodigious and immeasurable— 
a fact that opposes and counterbalances the immensity of non-existence.’ 
—Sterling, in his Thoughts and Images. 


444, CHAPTER IX, . 


has become the highest goal of millions among the 
followers of Buddha—we may perhaps, even at 
this preliminary stage of our inquiries, begin to 
appreciate the power of language over thought, and 
feel less surprise at the ancient nations for having 
allowed the names of natural objects, the sky, the 
sun, the moon, the dawn, and winds, to assume the 
character of supernatural powers or divine person- 
alities, or for having offered worship and _ sacrifice 
to such abstract names as Fate, Justice, or Victory. 
There is as much mythology in our use of the ‘word 
Nothing as in the most absurd portions of the mytho- 
logical phraseology of India, Greece, and Rome; and 
if we ascribe the former to a disease of language, the 
causes of which we are able to explain, we shall have 
to admit that, in the latter, language has reached to 
an almost delirious state, and has ceased to be what 
it was meant to be, the expression of the impressions 
received through the senses, or of the conceptions of 
a rational mind. 

But to return to Locke’s statement, that all names 
of emmaterial objects are derived from the names of 
material objects. Many philosophers, as I remarked, 
instead of grappling manfully with the conclusions 
that are supposed to flow from Locke’s observation, 
have preferred to question the accuracy of his obser- 
vation. 


Cousin and Locke. 


Victor Cousin, in his ‘Lectures on the History of 
Philosophy during the Eighteenth Century,’! endea- 


1 Paris, 1841, Vol. ii. p. 274. 


METAPHOR. 4.45 


vours to controvert Locke’s assertion by the following 
process :— 


I shall give you two words (he says), and I shall ask you to 
trace them back to primitive words expressive of sensible ideas. 
Take the word je, I. This word, at least in all languages known 
to me, is not to be reduced, not to be decomposed, primitive ; 
and it expresses no sensible idea, it represents nothing but the 
meaning which the mind attaches to it; it is a pure and true 
sign, without any reference to any sensible idea. The word 
étre, to be, is exactly in the same case; it is primitive and 

‘altogether intellectual. I know of no language in which the 
French verb étve is rendered by a corresponding word that ex- 
presses a sensible idea; and therefore it is not true that all the 
roots of language, in their last analysis, are signs of sensible 
ideas. 


Now it must be admitted that the French ye, which 
is the Sanskrit aham, is a word of doubtful etymo- 
logy. It belongs to the earliest formations of Aryan 
speech, and-we need not wonder that even in Sanskrit 
the materials out of which this pronoun was formed 
should have disappeared. We can explain in English 
such words as myself or your honour ; but we could 
not attempt, with the means supplied by English 
alone, to analyse J, thou, and he. It is the same with 
the Sanskrit aham, a word carried down by the 
stream of language from such distant ages, that even 
the Vedas, as compared with them, are but, as it were, 
of yesterday. But though the etymology of aham 
is doubtful, it has never been doubtful to any scholar 
that, like all other words, it must have an etymology; 
that it must be derived either from a predicative or 
from a demonstrative root. Those who would derive 
aham from a predicative root, have thought of the 


446 CHAPTER IX. 


root ah, to breathe, to speak.1 Those who would 
derive it from a demonstrative root, refer us to the 
Vedic gha, the later ha, this, used like the Greek doe. 
We saw before how the pronoun of the first person is 
expressed in Chinese, and although such expressions 
as ‘servant says, instead of ‘I say, may seem to us 
modern and artificial, they are not so in Chinese, 
and show at all events that even so colourless an idea 
as I may meet with signs sufficiently pale and faded 
to express it.? 

With regard to étre, to be, the case is different. 
Etre® is the Latin esse, changed into essere and con- 
tracted. The root, therefore, is as, which, in all the 
Aryan languages, has supplied the material for the 
auxiliary verb. Now, even in Sanskrit, it is true, 
this root as is completely divested of its material 
character; it means to be, and nothing else. But 
there is in Sanskrit a derivative of the root as, 
namely, asu, and in this asu, which means the vital 
breath, the original meaning of the root as has been 


1 TI thought it possible, in my History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 21, 
to connect ah-am with Sanskrit aha, I said, Greek 7, Latin ajo and 
nego, nay, with Gothic ahma (instead of agma), spirit ; but I do so no 
longer. Nor do I accept the opinion of Benfey (Sanskrit Grammatik, 
§ 773), who derives aham from the pronominal root gha with a pro- 
sthetic a. It is a word which, for the present, must remain without a 
genealogy. 

2 Jean Paul, in his Levana, p. 32, says, ‘ “ I” is—excepting God, the 
true I and true Thou at once—the highest and most incomprehensible 
that can be uttered by language, or contemplated. It is there all at 
once, as the whole realm of truth and conscience, which, without ‘ I,” 
is nothing. We must ascribe it to God, as well as to unconscious 
beings, if we want to conceive the being of the One, and the existence 
of the others.’ 

3 Cf. Diez, Lexicon, s. v. ‘ essere.’ 


METAPHOR. 44,7 


preserved. As, in order to give rise to such a noun 
as asu, must have meant to breathe, then to live, then 
to exist, and it must have passed through all these 
stages before it could have been used as the abstract 
auxiliary verb which we find not only in Sanskrit, — 
but in all Aryan languages. Unless this one deriva- 
tive asu, life, had been preserved in Sanskrit, it 
would have been impossible to guess the original 
material meaning of the root as, to be; yet even then 
the student of language would have been justified in 
postulating such a meaning. And even in French, 
though étre may seem an entirely abstract word, the 
imperfect j’étais, the participle été, like the Spanish 
estaba and estado, are clearly derived from Latin 
stare, to stand, and show how easily so definite an 
idea as to stand may dwindle down to the abstract 
idea of being. If we look to other languages, we shall 
find again and again the French verb étre rendered 
by corresponding words that expressed originally a 
sensible idea. Our verb to be is derived from Sanskrit 
bht, which, as we learn from Greek phyé, meant 
originally to grow.' J was is connected with the 
Gothie wisan, which means to dwell. 

But though on this point the student of language 
must side with Locke, and admit, without one single 
exception, the material character of all words, nothing 
can be more convincing than the manner in which 
Victor Cousin disposes of the conclusions which some 
philosophers, though certainly not Locke himself, 
seem inclined to draw from such premises. 


* See M. M.’s Essay on the Aryan and Aboriginal Languages of India, 
p. 344. 


448 CHAPTER IX. 


Further (he writes) even if this were true, and absolutely 
true, which is not the case, we could conclude no more than 
this. Man is at first, by the action of all his faculties, carried 
out of himself and toward the external world; the phenomena 
of the external world strike him first, and hence these pheno- 
mena receive the first names. The first signs are borrowed 
from sensible objects, and they are tinged to a certain extent 
by their colours. When man afterwards turns back on himself, 
and lays hold more or less distinctly of the intellectual pheno- 
mena which he had always, though somewhat vaguely, per- 
ceived; if, then, he wants to give expression to the new 
phenomena of mind and soul, analogy leads him to connect the 
signs he seeks with those he already possesses: for analogy is 
the law of each growing or developed language. Hence the 
metaphors to which our analysis traces back most of the signs 
and names of the most abstract moral ideas. 


Nothing can be truer than the caution thus given 
by Cousin to those who would use Locke’s observation 
as an argument in favour of a one-sided sensualistic 
philosophy. 

The Power of Metaphor. 


Metaphor is one of the most powerful engines in 
the construction of human speech, and without it we 
can hardly imagine how any language could have 
progressed beyond the simplest rudiments. Metaphor 
generally means the transferring of a name from the 
object to which it properly belongs to other objects 
which strike the mind as in some way or other par- 
ticipating in the peculiarities of the first object. 
The mental process which gave to the root mar the 
meaning of to propitiate was no other than this, that 
men perceived some analogy between the smooth 
surface produced by rubbing and polishing and the 
smooth expression of countenance, the smoothness of 


METAPHOR, 4.4.9 


voice, and the calmness of looks produced even in an 
enemy by kind and gentle words. Thus, when we 
speak of a crane, we apply the name of a bird to an 
engine. People were struck with some kind of simi- 
larity between the long-legged bird picking up his — 
food with his long beak and their rude engines for 
lifting weights. In Greek, too, géranos has both 
meanings. Thisis metaphor. Again, cutting remarks, 
glowing words, fervent prayers, slashing articles, all 
are metaphor. Spiritus in Latin meant originally 
blowing, or wind. But when the principle of life 
within man or animal had to be named, its outward 
sign, namely, the breath of the mouth, was naturally 
chosen to express it. Hence in Sanskrit asu, breath 
and life; in Latin spiritus, breath and life. Again, 
when it was perceived that there was something else 
to be named, not the mere animal life, but that which 
was supported by this animal life, the same word was 
chosen, in the Modern Latin dialects, to express the 
spiritual as opposed to the mere material or animal 
element in man. All this is metaphor. 

We read in the Veda, ii. 3, 4:1—* Who saw the 
first-born when he who had no form (lit. bones) bore 
him that had form? Where was the breath (asuh), 
the blood (asrik), the self (Atma) of the earth? 
Who went to ask this from any that knew it?’ 

Here breath, blood, self are so many attempts at 
expressing what we should now call cause. 


The Metaphorical Period. 


But let us now consider for a moment that what 


*M. M., History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 20. 
Il. Gg 


4.50 CHAPTER IX. 


philosophers, and particularly Locke, have pointed out 
as a peculiarity of certain words, such as to apprehend, 
to comprehend, to understand, to fathom, to imagine, 
spirit, and angel, must have been, in reality, a 
peculiarity of a whole period in the early history of 
speech. No advance was possible in the intellectual 
life of man without metaphor. Most roots that have 
yet been discovered, had originally a material meaning. 
We meet with roots meaning to strike, to bend, to 
break, to clean, to join, to lick, to pound, but we 
never meet with primitive roots expressive of actions 
or states that do not fall under the cognisance of the 
senses. Sometimes their meaning is more special, and 
then becomes generalised ; sometimes it is general, and 
becomes specialised! Language has been a very good 
housewife to her husband, the human Mind; she has 
made very little go a long way. With a very small 
store of such material roots as we just mentioned, she 
has furnished decent clothing for the numberless off- 
spring of the Mind, leaving no idea, no sentiment 
unprovided for, except, perhaps, the few which, as we 
are assured by some poets, are inexpressible. 

‘Thus from roots meaning to be bright, to sparkle, 
names were formed for sun, moon, stars, the eyes of 
man, gold, silver, play, joy, happiness, love. With 
roots meaning to strike, it was possible to name an 
axe, the thunderbolt, a fist, a paralytic stroke, a strik- 
ing remark, and a stroke of business. From roots 
meaning to go, names were derived for clouds, for 
ivy, for creepers, serpents, cattle, and chattel, move- 


’ See Science of Thought, p. 641. 


METAPHOR. 451 


able and immoveable property. With a root meaning 
to crumble, expressions were formed for sickness and 
death, for evening and night, for old age, and for the 
fall of the year. — 


Radical and Poetical Metaphor. 


We must now endeavour to distinguish between 
two kinds of metaphor, which I eall radical and 
poetical. I call it radical metaphor when a root 
which means to shine is applied to form the names, 
not only of the fire or the sun, but of the spring 
of the year, the morning light, the brightness of 
thought, or the joyous outburst of hymns of praise. 
Ancient languages are brimful of such metaphors, 
and under the microscope of the etymologist almost 
every word discloses traces of its first metaphorical 
conception. 

From this we must distinguish poetical metaphor, 
namely, when a noun or verb, ready made and as- 
signed to one definite object or action, is transferred 
poetically to another object or action. For instance, 
when the rays of the sun are called the hands or 
fingers of the sun, the noun which means hand or 
finger existed ready made, and was, as such, trans- 
ferred poetically to the stretched out rays of the sun. 
By the same process the clouds are called mountains, 
the rain-clouds are spoken of as cows with heavy 
udders, the thunder-cloud as a goat or as a goat- 
skin, the sun as a horse, or as a bull, or as a giant 
bird, the lightning as an arrow, or as a serpent. 

What applies to nouns, applies likewise to verbs. 
A verb such as ‘to give birth’ is used, for instance, 

Gg2 


452 CHAPTER IX. 


of the night producing, or, more correctly, preceding 
the day, as well as of the day preceding the night. 
The sun, under one name, is said to beget the dawn, 
because the approach of daylight gives rise to the 
dawn; under another name the sun is said to love 
the dawn, because he follows her as a bridegroom 
follows after his bride; and lastly, the sun is said to 
destroy the dawn, because the dawn disappears as 
soon as the sun has risen. From another point of 
view the dawn may be said to give birth to the sun, 
because the sun seems to spring from her lap; she 
may be said to die or disappear after having given 
birth to her brilliant son, because as soon as the sun 
is born, the dawn must vanish. All these metaphors, 
however full of contradictions, were perfectly in- 
telligible to the ancient poets, though to our modern 
understanding they are frequently riddles difficult to 
solve. We read in the Rigveda (x. 189),! where the 
sunrise is described, that the dawn comes near to the 
sun, and breathes her last when the sun draws his 
first breath. The commentators indulge in the most 
fanciful explanations of this expression without sus- 
pecting the simple conception of the poet, which after 
all is very natural, namely that the dawn vanishes 
after the sun has risen. 

Let us consider, then, that there was, necessarily 
and really, a period in the history of our race when 
all the thoughts that went beyond the narrow horizon 
of our every-day life had to be expressed by means 
of metaphors, and that these metaphors had not yet 


* See M. M., Die Todtenbestattung der Brahmaren, p. xi. 


METAPHOR. 453 


become what they are to us, mere conventional and 
traditional expressions, but were felt and understood 
half in their original and half in their modified cha- 
racter. We shall then perceive that such a period of 
thought and speech must be marked by features very - 
different from those of any later age. 


Homonymy and Polyonymy. 


One of the first results would naturally be that 
objects in themselves quite distinct, and originally 
conceived as distinct by the human intellect, would 
nevertheless receive the same name. If there was a 
root meaning to shine forth, to revive, to gladden, that 
root might be applied to the dawn, as the burst of 
brightness after the dark night, to a spring of water, 
gushing forth from the rock and gladdening the heart 
of the traveller, and to the spring of the year, that 
awakens the earth after the death-like rest of winter.! 
The spring of the year, the spring of water, the day- 
spring, would thus, though for different reasons, go by 
the same name, they would be what Aristotle calls 
homonyma or namesakes. On the other hand, the 
same object might strike the human mind in various 
ways. The sun might be called the warming and 
generating, but likewise the scorching and killing; 
the sea might be called the barrier as well as the 
bridge, and the high-road of commerce; the clouds 
might be spoken of as bright cows with heavy udders, 
or as dark and roaring demons. Every day that dawns 
in the morning might be called the twin of the night 


1 See M. M., in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xix. 44. 


4154 CHAPTER IX. 


that follows the day, or all the days of the year might 
be called brothers, or so many head of cattle which are 
driven to their heavenly pasture every morning, and 
shut up in the dark stable of Augeias at night. In 
this manner one and the same object would receive 
many names, or would become, as the Stoics called 
it, polyonymous, many-named—having many aliases. 

Now it has always been pointed out as a peculiarity 
of what we call ancient languages, that they have 
many words for the same thing, these words being 
sometimes called synonymes; and likewise, that their 
words have frequently very numerous meanings. Yet 
what we call ancient languages, such as the Sanskrit 
of the Vedas or the Greek of Homer, are in reality 
very modern languages; that is to say, they show 
clear traces of having passed through many, many 
successive periods of growth and decay, before they 
became what we know them to be in the earliest 
literary documents of India and Greece. What, then, 
must have been the state of these languages in their 
earlier periods, before many names, that might have 
been and were applied to various objects, were re- 
stricted to one object, and before each object, that 
might have been and was called by various names, 
was reduced to one name! Even in our days we 
confess that there is a great deal in a name; how 
much more must that have been the case during the 
primitive ages of man’s childhood! 


The Mythic Period. 


The period in the history of language and thought 
which I have thus endeavoured to describe as charac- 


METAPHOR. ABD 


terised by what we may call two tendencies, the 
homonymous and the polyonymous,! I shall henee- 
forth call the mythic or mythological period, and I 
shall try to show how much of what has hitherto been 
a riddle in the origin and spread of myths becomes | 
perfectly intelligible, if considered in connection with 
the early phases through which language and thought 
must necessarily pass. 

Before I enter, however, on a fuller explanation of 
my meaning, I think it right to guard from the be- 
ginning against two mistakes, to which the name of 
Mythic Period might possibly give rise. What I call 
a period is not so in the strict sense of the word: it 
has no fixed limits that could be laid down with 
chronological accuracy. There is a time in the early 
history of all nations in which the mythological cha- 
racter predominates to such an extent that we may 
speak of it as the mythological period, just as we 
might call the age in which we live the age of dis- 
coveries. But the tendencies which characterise the 
mythological period, though they necessarily lose 
much of that power with which, at one time, they 
swayed every intellectual movement, continue to 
work under different disguises in all ages, even in 
our own, though perhaps the least given to metaphor, 
poetry, and mythology. 

Secondly, when I speak of a mythic period, I do 
not use mythic in the restricted sense in which it is 
generally used, namely, as being necessarily connected 
with stories about gods, heroes, and heroines. In 


1 Augustinus, De Civ. Dei, vii. 16: ‘ Et aliquando unum deum res 
plures, aliquando unam rem deos plures faciunt.’ 


456 CHAPTER IX. 


the sense in which I use mythic, it is applicable to 
every sphere of thought and every class of words, 
though, from reasons to be explained hereafter, 
religious ideas are most liable to mythological ex- 
pression. Whenever any word, that was at first used 
metaphorically, is used without a clear conception of 
the steps that led from its original to its metaphorical 
meaning, there is danger of mythology; whenever 
those steps are forgotten and artificial steps put in 
their places, we have mythology, or, if I may say so, 
we have diseased language, whether that language 
refers to religious or secular interests. Why I use the 
term mythic or mythological in this wide sense, a 
sense not justified by Greek or Roman usage, will 
appear when we come to see how what is commonly 
called mythology is but a part of a much more 
general phase through which all language has at 
one time or other to pass. 

After these preliminary remarks, I now proceed to 
examine some cases of what I called radical and 
poetical metaphor. 


Cases of Radical Metaphor. 


Cases of radical metaphor, though numerous in 
radical and agglutinative languages, are less frequent 
in inflectional languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and 
Latin. Nor is it difficult to account for this. It was 
the very inconvenience caused by words which failed 
to convey distinctly the intention of the speaker that 
gave the impulse to that new phase of life in language 
which we call inflectional. Because it was felt to be 
important to distinguish between the bright one, i.e. 


METAPHOR. 457 


the sun, and the bright one, i.e. the day, and the 
bright one, i.e. wealth, therefore the root vas, to be 
bright, was modified by inflection, and broken up into 
Vi-vas-vat, the sun, vas-ara, day, vas-u, wealth. 
In a radical and in many an agglutinative language, 
the mere root vas would have been considered 
sufficient to express, pro re natd, any one of these 
meanings. Yet inflectional languages, too, yield fre- 
quent instances of radical metaphor, some of which, 
as we shall see, have led to very ancient misunder- 
standings, and, in course of time, to mythology. 
There is, for instance, in Sanskrit, a root ark or 
ark, which means to be bright; but, like most 
primitive verbs, it is used both in a transitive and 
intransitive sense, thus meaning both to be bright and 
to make bright. Only ‘to make bright’ meant more 
in that ancient language than it means with us. To 
make bright meant to cheer, to gladden, to celebrate, 
to glorify, and it is constantly used in these different 
senses by the ancient poets of the Veda. Now, by a 
very simple and intelligible process, the meaning of 
this root ark might be transferred to the sun, or the 
moon, or the stars; all of them might be called ark 
or rik without any change in the outward appear- 
ance of the root. For all we know, rik, as a sub- 
stantive, may really have conveyed all these meanings 
during the earliest period of the Aryan languages. 
But if we look at the fully developed branches of 
that family of speech, we find that in this, its sim- 
plest form, rzk has been divested of all meanings 
except one; it only means a song of praise, a hymn, 
that gladdens the heart and brightens the counte- 


458 CHAPTER IX. 


nance of the gods, or that makes their power efful- 
gent and manifest... The other meanings, however, 
which 774 might have expressed were not entirely 
given up; they were only rendered more definite by 
new and distinct grammatical modifications of the 
same root. Thus, in order to express light or ray, 
arki was formed, a masculine, and very soon also a 
neuter, arkis. Neither of these nouns is ever used 
in the sense of praise which clings to rik; they 
have only the sense of light and splendour. 

Again, quite regularly, a new derivative was formed, 
namely, arkah, a masculine. This likewise means 
light, or ray of light, but it has been fixed upon as 
the proper name of the light of lights, the sun. Ar- 
kah, then, by a very natural metaphor, became one of 
the many names of the sun ; but by another metaphor, | 
which we explained before, arkah, with exactly the 
same accent and gender, was also used in the sense of 
hymn of praise. Now here we have a clear case of 
radical metaphor in Sanskrit. It was not the noun 
arkah, in the sense of sun, that was, by a bold flight 
of fancy, transferred to become the name of a hymn of 
praise, nor vice versd. The same root ark, under ex- 
actly the same form, was bestowed independently on 
two distinct conceptions. If the reason of the inde- 
pendent bestowal of the same root on these two dis- 
tinct ideas, sun and hymn, was forgotten, there was 
danger of mythology, and we actually find in India 


1 The passage in the Vagasaneyi Sanhita, 18, 39, ‘riké tva 
ruké tv,’ contains either an isolated remnant of the original import 
of the root, preserved in a proverbial phrase, or it is a mere etymological 
play. 


METAPHOR. 459 


that a myth sprang up, and that hymns of praise were 
fabled to have proceeded from, or to have originally 
been revealed by, the sun. 


The Great Bear. 


Our root ark offers us another instance of the same 
kind of metaphor, but slightly differing from that 
Just examined. From rzk, in the sense of shining, it 
was possible to form a derivative rz7kta, in the sense 
of lighted up, or bright. This form does not exist in 
Sanskrit ; but as kt in Sanskrit is liable to be changed 
into ks,| we may recognise in r7ksha the same de- 
rivative of rik. Rziksha, in the sense of bright, has 
become the name of the bear, though it is difficult to 
say for what reason, whether from his bright eyes or 
from his brilliant tawny fur. The same name 
riksha was given in Sanskrit to the stars, the 


* Kuhn, in the Zeitschrift fiir die Wissenschaft der Sprache, i. 155, 
was the first to point out the identity of Sk. riksha and Greek dpxtos 
in their mythological application. He proved that ksh in Sanskrit 
represented an original kt, in takshan, carpenter, Gr. 7éxtTwy ; in 
kshi, to dwell, «7iw; in vakshas, Lat. pectus (?). Curtius, in his 
Grundziige, added kshan, to kill, Gr. «vay; Aufrecht (Kuhn’s Zeit- 
schrift, viii. 71), kshi, to kill, «re in xriwvups; Leo Meyer (v. 374), 
ksham, earth, Gr. x@wv. ‘To these may be added kshi, to possess, or 
kshaya=xrdoupa ; and perhaps kshu, to sneeze, mTvw, to spue, if it 
stands for xriw. In P6i-o1s, also, the root may be kshi; kshiyate, he 
perishes. 

2 Grimm (D.W. s.v. Auge and Bir) compares riksha, Bir, not 
only with dpxros, ursus, Lit. lokis (instead of olkis, orkis), Irish art 
(instead of arct), but also with Old High-German élaho, which is not 
the bear, but the elk, the alces described by Cesar, B. G. vi. 27. This 
alces, however, the Old High-German élaho, would agree better with 
visa or risya, some kind of roebuck, mentioned in the Veda (Rv. viii. 
4, 10). land, the Dutch name for elk, comes from the Lituanian 
elnis, Russ. oléne,a stag. In German this word has become Elen, Eleni, 
and Hlentier, in French élan. 


4.60 CHAPTER IX. 


bright ones. It is used as a masculine and neuter in 
the later Sanskrit, as a masculine only in the Veda. 
In one passage of the Rigveda, i. 24, 10, we read as 
follows :—‘ These stars fixed high above, which are 
seen by night, whither did they go by day?’ The com- 
mentator, it is curious to observe, is not satisfied here 
with this translation of r7ksha in the sense of stars 
in general, but appeals to the tradition of the Vaga- 
saneyins, in order to show that the stars here called 
rikshas, are the same constellation which in later 
Sanskrit is called ‘the Seven Rishis, or ‘the Seven 
Sages.’ They are the stars that never seem to set 
during the night, and therefore the question whither 
they went by day would naturally suggest itself to 
people in the North of India. Anyhow, the tradition 
is there, and the question is whether it can be ex- 
plained. Now, remember, that the constellation here 
called the Rzkshas, in the sense of the bright ones, 
would be homonymous in Sanskrit with the Bears. 
Remember also, that, apparently without rhyme or 
reason, the same constellation is called by Greeks and 
Romans the Bear, in the singular, drktos and wrsa. 
There may be some similarity between that constella- 
tion and a waggon or wain, but there is hardly any 
to a bear." Observe now the almost spontaneous 

* The following facts would seem to qualify this statement. I find 
in the Journal of the Asiat. Soc. of Bengal (1865, p. 235), that the 
Karens call the Great Bear the Elephant. The pole star is a mouse 
crawling into the elephant’s trunk. Mr. Tylor sent me a curious ex- 
tract from Charlevoix, Hist. et Descr. gén. de la Nouwvelle-France; 
Paris, 1744; vol. vi. p. 148: ‘Ils donnent le nom d’Ours aux quatre 
premitres de ce que nous appelons la grande Ourse; les trois, qui com- 


posent sa queue ou qui font le train du Chariot de David, sont, selon 
eux, trois Chasseurs, qui poursuivent l’Ours; et la petite étoile, qui 


METAPHOR. 461 


growth of mythology. The name 7iksha was ap- 
plied to the bear in the sense of the bright fuscous 
animal, and in that sense it became most popular in 
the later Sanskrit, and in Greek and Latin. The same 
name, in the sense of the bright ones, had been applied 
by the Vedic poets to the stars in general, and more 
particularly to that constellation which, in the nor- 
thern parts of India, was the most prominent. The 
etymological meaning of riksha, as simply the 
bright stars, was forgotten, the popular meaning of 
riksha, bear, was known to everybody. And thus 
it happened that when the Greeks had left their cen- 
tral home and settled in Europe, they retained the 
name of Arktos for the same unchanging stars, but 
not knowing why these stars had originally received 
that name, they ceased to speak of them as drkto/, or 
many bears, and spoke of them as the Bear, the Great 


accompagne celle du milieu, est la Chauditre, dont le second est chargé. 
Les sauvages de l’Acadie nommoient tout simplement cette constella- 
tion et la suivante la grande et la petite Ourse; mais ne pourroit-on 
pas juger que, quand ils parloient ainsi au sieur Lescarbot, ils ne répé- 
toient que ce quwils avoient oui dire & plusieurs Frangois ?’ 

This last suspicion ought no doubt to be taken into account, but the 
following extract from Cotton Mather’s The Life and Death of the Rev. 
Mr. John Eliot, 3rd. ed. London, 1694, p. 86, seems to confirm the 
statement: ‘ Their division of time is by sleeps, and moons, and winters ; 
and, by lodging abroad, they have somewhat observed the motions of 
the stars; among which it has been surprising unto me to find, that 
they have always called Charles’ Wain by the name Paukunnawaw, or 
the Bear.’ Roger Williams, also, in his Key into the Language of 
America (Narragansett Club), vol. i. p. 24, says: ‘ As the Greekes and 
other Nations, and our selves call the Seven Starres (or Charles Waine) 
the Beare, so doe they Mosk or Paukunnawaw, the Beare.’ Lastly, 
Cranz, in his Grdnland (Barby, 1765, p. 294), says: ‘Den Sternen 
geben sie auch besondere Namen. Ursa major heisst bei ihnen Tukto, 
das Rennthier ; die Siebensterne Kellukhuset, d.i. einige Hunde, die 
einen Biren hetzen, und nach denselben rechnen sie die Nachtzeiten.’ 


462 CHAPTER IX. 


Bear, adding a bearward, the Arcturus (otros, ward),} 
and in time even a Little Bear. Thus the name of 
the Arctic regions rests on a misunderstanding of a 
name framed thousands of years ago in Central Asia ; 
and the surprise with which many a thoughtful 
observer has looked at. these seven bright stars, won- 
dering why they were ever called the Bear, is re- 
moved by a reference to the early annals of human 
speech. 

On the other hand, the Hindus also forgot the 
original meaning of rzksha. It became a mere name, 
apparently with two meanings, star and bear. In 
India, however, the meaning of bear predominated, 
and as 77ksha became more and more the established 
name of the animal, it lost in the same degree its con- 
nection with the stars. So when, in later times, their 
Seven Sages had become familiar to all under the 
name of the Seven Aishis, the seven Rikshas, be- 
ing unattached, gradually drifted towards the Seven 
Rishis, and many a fable sprang up as to the seven 
poets dwelling in the seven stars. The Turks, on the 
contrary, being a race of nomadic robbers, saw in the 
seven stars seven robbers watching for the two horns 
of the Little Bear, and therefore called the Great Bear 
Jeti-qaraqét, i.e. the Seven Robbers.? Such is the 
origin of myths. 

The only doubtful point in the history of the myth 
of the Great Bear is the uncertainty which attaches 


Cf. Oupwpos, a door-ward ; Goth. daura-wards ; émioupos, overseer ; 
ppovpa, watch ; Latin, vereor. 

* Schott, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1879, 
p. 543. 


METAPHOR. 463 


to the exact etymological meaning of riksha, bear. 
We do not see why of all other animals the bear 
should have been called the bright animal.! It is 
true that the reason of many a name is beyond our 
reach, and that we must frequently rest satisfied with 
the fact that such a name is derived from such a root, 
and therefore had originally such a meaning. The 
bear was the king of beasts with many northern 
nations, who did not know the lion; and it would be 
equally difficult to say why the ancient Germans 
called him Goldfusz, golden-footed. But even if the 
derivation of riksha from ark had to be given up, 
the later chapters in the history of the word would 
still remain the same. We should have riksha, star, 
derived from ark, to shine, mixed up with riksha, 
bear, derived from some other root, such as, for in- 
stance, ars or rvs, to hurt; but the reason why cer- 
tain stars were afterwards conceived as bears would 
not be affected by this. It should also be stated that 
the bear is little known in the Veda. In the two 
passages of the Rigveda where riksha occurs, it is 
explained by Sayama, in the sense of hurtful and of 
fire, not in that of bear. In the later literature, how- 
ever, 72ksha, bear, is of very common occurrence. 
Another name of the Great Bear, or originally the 
Seven Bears, or really the seven bright stars, is Sep- 
temtriones. The two words which form the name are 
occasionally used separately; for instance, ‘quas nostri 
septem solite vocitare triones.? Varro (L. L. vii. 73- 
75), in a passage which is not very clear, tells us that 


" See, however, Welcker’s remarks on the wolf in his Griechische 
Gotterlehre, p. 64. evArats ine Na Deis 4), 0b: 


464, CHAPTER IX. 


triones was the name by which, even at his time, 
ploughmen used to call oxen when actually employed 
for ploughing the earth.’ If we could quite depend 
on the fact that oxen were ever called triones, we 
might accept the explanation of Varro, and should 
have to admit that at one time the seven stars were 
conceived as seven oxen. But as a matter of fact, 
trio is never used in this sense, except by Varro, for 
the purpose of an etymology ; nor are the seven stars 
ever again spoken of as seven oxen, but only as ‘the 
oxen and the shaft, boves et temo, a much more ap- 
propriate name. Bodtes, too, the ploughman or cow- 
driver, given to the same star which before we saw 
called Arcturus, or bear-keeper, would only imply 
that the waggon (hdmazxa) was conceived as drawn 
by two or three oxen, but not that all the seven stars 
were ever spoken of as oxen.” Though, in matters of 
this kind, it is impossible to speak very positively, it 
seems not improbable that the name triones, which 
certainly cannot be derived from terra, may be an 
old name for star in general. We saw that the stars 


' «Triones enim boves appellantur a bubulcis etiam nunc maxume 
quom arant terram; e quis ut dicti valentes glebarii qui facile proscin- 
dunt glebas, sic omnis qui terram arabant a terra terriones, unde triones 
ut dicerentur e detrito.’ In another place Varro says: ‘ Possunt triones 
dici septem quod ita site stelle ut terna trigona faciant.’? See also 
Festus, and Gellius, ii1.21,7. A curious coincidence occurs in Chinese, 
where, as Chalmers states (Origin of the Chinese, p. 23), the septem 
triones are represented as seven stars making three triangles. In Bask 
the Great Bear is simply called the Seven Stars (Légendes du Pays 
Basque, par M. Cerguand) (Extrait du Bulletin de la Société Ramond, 
Octobre, 1875). 

2 Spenser, in the Fairy Queen, 1, 2, writes: 

‘By that the northern waggoner had set 
His sevenfold teme behind the steadfast starre.’ 


METAPHOR. 465 


in Sanskrit were called star-as, the strewers of light ; 
and the Latin stella is but a contraction of sterula. 
The English star, the German Stern, come from the 
Same source. But besides star, we find in Sanskrit 
another name for star, namely, tara, where the initial ~ 
s of the root is lost. Such a loss is by no means un- 
frequent,’ and trio, in Latin, might therefore repre- 
sent an original stvio, star. The name strio, star, 
having become obsolete, like riksha, the Sener 
triones remained a mere traditional name ; and if, as 
Varro tells us, there was a vulgar name for ox in 
Latin, namely, trio, which then would have to be 
derived from tevo, to pound, the peasants speaking 
of the Septem triones, the seven stars, would natur- 
ally imagine themselves speaking of seven oxen. 


Boves et Temo. 


But as it has been doubted that the seven stars 
ever suggested by themselves the picture of seven 
animals, whether bears or cows, I equally question 
that the seven were ever spoken of as temo, the 
shaft. Varro says they were called ‘boves et temo, 
‘oxen and shaft, but not that they were called both 
oxen and shaft. We can well imagine the four stars 
being taken for oxen, and the three for the shaft; or 
again, the four stars being taken for the cart, one star 
for the shaft, and two for the oxen. No one, how- 
ever, could ever have called the seven together the 
shaft. But then it might be objected that temo, in 
Latin, means not only shaft, but carriage, and should 


1 See Kuhn, PALIT, iv.4 seq. Torus is connected with sternere, 
tonare with Sk. stan, oTéva, 


Te Hh 


466 CHAPTER IX. 


be taken as an equivalent of himaxa. This might 
be, only it has never been shown that temo in Latin 
meant a carriage. Varro,' no doubt, affirms that it 
was so, but we have’ no further evidence. For if 
Juvenal says (Sat. iv. 126),‘ De temone Britanno ea- 
cidet Arviragus, this really means from the shaft, 
because it was the custom of the Britons to stand 
fighting on the shafts of their chariots.2_ And in the 
other passages,’ where temo is supposed to mean car 
in general, it only means our constellation, which can 
in no wise prove that temo by itself ever had the 
meaning of car. 

Temo stands for tegmo, and is derived from the root 
taksh, which likewise yields tignuwm, a beam. In 
French, too, le timon is never a carriage, but the 
shaft, the German Deichsel, the Anglo-Saxon thial or 
thisl,s words which are themselves, in strict accord- 
ance with Grimm’s law, derived from the same root 
(tvaksh, or taksh) as temo. The English team, on 
the contrary, has no connection whatever with temo 


* L. L, vii. 75: ‘Temo dictus a tenendo, is enim continet jugum. Et 
plaustrum appellatum, a parte totum, ut multa.’ 

2 Gres Bb Ge ivstoo. velo. 

* Stat. Theb. i. 692: ‘Sed jam temone supino Languet hyperboree 
glacialis portitor Ursee.’ 

Stat. Zheb. i. 370: ‘Hyberno deprensus navita ponto, Cui neque 
temo piger, neque amico sidere monstrat Luna vias.’ 

Cic. N. D. ii. 42: ‘(Vertens Arati carmina) Arctophylax, vulgo qui 
dicitur esse Bootes, Quod quasi temone adjunctam pre se quatit Arcton.’ 

Ovid, Met. x. 447: ‘Interque triones Flexerat obliquo plaustrum 
temone Bootes,’ 

Lucan, lib. iv. v. 523: ‘ Flexoque Urse temone paverent.’ 

Propert. iii. 5, 35: ‘ Cur serus versare boves e¢ plaustra Bootes.’ 

* In A.S. thisl is used as a name of the constellation of Charles’s 
Wain ; like temo. 


- METAPHOR. 4.67 


or tumon, but comes from the Anglo-Saxon verb tedn, 
to draw, the German zichen, the Gothic tiuhan, the 
Latin duco. It means drawing, and a team of horses 
means literally a draught of horses, a line of horses, 
ein Zug Pferde. The verb tedn (tedn, tedh, tugon, - 
togen), however, like the German ziehen, had likewise 
the meaning of bringing up, or rearing; and ag in 
German ziehen, Zucht, and ziichten, so in Anglo-Saxon 
team was used in the sense of issue, progeny ; teamian 
(in English, for distinctness sake, spelt to teen) took 
the sense of producing, propagating, and lastly of 
abounding.! 
Walnut. 


According to the very nature of language, mytho- 
logical misunderstandings such as that which gave 
rise to the stories of the Great Bear must be more 
frequent in ancient than in modern dialects. Never- 
theless, the same mythological accidents will happen 
even in modern French and English. To speak of the 
seven bright stars, the Rikshas, as the Bear, is no 
more than if in speaking of a walnut we were to 
imagine that it had anything to do with a wall. 
Walnut is the Icel. val-hnot, in A.S. *wealh-hnut, in 
German Wédlsche Nuss. Wdlsch in German means 
originally foreigner, barbarian, and was especially ap- 
plied by the Germans to the Italians. Hence Italy is 
to the present day called Walschland in German. The 
Saxon invaders gave the same name to the Celtic 
inhabitants of the British Isles, who are called wealh 


* Prof. Skeat, in his Htymological Dictionary, connects team in both 
senses with Goth. ¢aujan, Mod. Germ. zawen, Sk. du, as in duvas, Mod. 
Germ. Zauber. 


Hha2 


468 CHAPTER IX, 


in Anglo-Saxon (plur. wealas). Hence the walnut 
meant originally the foreign nut. In Lituanian the 
walnut goes by the name of the ‘Italian nut, in 
Russian by that of ‘Greek nut”! What Englishman, 
in speaking of walnut, thinks that it means foreign 
or Itahan nut? But for the accident that walnuts are 
no wall fruit, I have little doubt that by this time 
schoolmasters would have insisted on spelling the 
word with two /’s, and that many a gardener would 
have planted his walnut trees against the wall. 


Jerusalem Artichokes. 


There is a soup called Palestine soup. It is made, 
I believe, of artichokes called Jerusalem artichokes, 
but the Jerusalem artichoke is so called from a mere 
misunderstanding. The artichoke, being a kind of 
sunflower, was called in Italian girasole, from the 
Latin gyrus, circle, and sol, sun. Hence Jerusalem 
artichokes and Palestine soups !” 


La Tour sans Venin. 


One other instance may here suffice, because we 
shall have to return to this subject of modern mytho- 
logy. One of the seven wonders of Dauphiny in 


* Pott, #. F. ii 127: ‘Itéliskas réssutys ; Gréczkof orjech.’ The 
German Lambertsnuss is nux Lombardica. Instead of walnut we find 
welshnut, Philos. Transact. xviii. p. 819, and walshnut in Gerarde’s 
Hlerbal. In the Index to the Herbal, however, walnut is spelt with 
two l’s, and classed with wallflower. 

* Similar instances in Grimm, Deutsche Gtr. ii. 548 ; iii.558. Forste- 
mann, ‘ Ueber Deutsche Volksetymologie’ (Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, i. p. 1). 
Koch, Histor. Grammatik der Englischen Sprache, yol. iii. p-s161; 
See infra, p. 653, 


METAPHOR. 469 


France is la Tour sans venin,! the Tower without 
poison, near Grenoble. It is said that poisonous 
animals die as soon as they approach it. Though the 
experiment has been tried, and has invariably failed, 
yet the common people believe in the miraculous © 
power of the locality as much as ever. They appeal 
to the name of la Tour sans venin, and all that the 
more enlightened among them can be made to con- 
cede is that the tower may have lost its miraculous 
character in the present age, but that it certainly 
possessed it in former days. The real name, how- 
ever, of the tower and of the chapel near it is San 
Verena or Saint Vrain. This became san veneno, 
and at last sans venin. 


Charis. 


But we must return to ancient mythology. There 
is a root in Sanskrit, GHAR, which, like ark, means 
to be bright and to make bright.? It was originally 
used of the glittermg of fat and ointment. This 
earliest sense is preserved in passages of the Veda, 
where the priest is said to brighten up the fire by 
sprinkling butter on it. It never means sprinkling 
in general, but always sprinkling with a bright fatty 
substance (beglitzern).? From this root we have 
ghrita, the modern ghee, melted butter, and in 
general anything fat (Schmalz), the fatness of the 


1 Brosses, Formation mécanique des Langues, ii. 138. 

2 Cf. Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, i. 154, 566 ; iii, 8346 (Schweizer), iv. 354 
(Pictet). 

8 Ry. ii. 10, 4: ‘Gigharmy agnim havisha ghriténa,’ ‘I 
anoint or brighten up the fire with oblations of fat.’ 


470 CHAPTER IX, 


land and of the clouds. Fat, however, means also 
bright, and hence the Dawn is called ghritépratika, 
bright-faced. Again, the fire claims the same name, 
as well as ghrzvtanirnig, with garments dripping 
with fat, or with brilliant garments. The horses of 
Agni or fire, too, are called ghritaprishthah, 
literally horses whose backs are covered with fat ; but, 
according to the commentator, well fed and shining. 
The same horses are called vitaprishtha, with 
beautiful backs, and ghritasn&h, bathed in fat, 
glittering, bedewed. Other derivatives of this root 
ghar are ghrina,' heat of the sun; in later Sans- 
krit ghrzana, warmth of the heart or pity, but like- 
wise heat or contempt; ghréni, the burning heat 
of the sun; gharmé, heat in general, also anything 
that is hot, the sun, the fire, warm milk, and even 
the kettle. It can be identified with Greek thermds, 
Latin formus, and with English warm. 

Instead of ghar we also find the root har, a slight 
modification of the former, and having the same mean- 
ing. This root has given rise to several derivatives. 
Two very well-known derivatives are hari and harit, 
both meaning originally bright, resplendent. Now 
let us remember that though occasionally both the 
Sun and the Dawn are conceived by the Vedic poets 


' Ghrina means heat or summer. Ryv.x. 37,10: ‘Sim hema s4m 
ghrinéna,’ ‘ Be thou propitious to us with winter and summer.’ 

? Ghrini means heat, sunshine. Rv. vi. 16,38: ‘tpa kkhayam 
iva ghriner 4ganma sd4rma te vaydm,’ ‘As from heat into shade 
we went to thee for refuge.’ 

In Greek yAtaivw means I warm ; xAiw, I become warm, I melt, I 
am soft or delicate ; xAapds means warm, lukewarm. In Anglo-Saxon 
we have gli-mo, gleam. 


METAPHOR. 47) 


as themselves horses,’ that is to say, as racers, it 
became a more familiar conception of theirs to speak 
of the Sun and the Dawn as drawn by horses. These 
horses are very naturally called hari, or harit, 
bright and brilliant; and many similar names, such 
as aruna, arusha, rohit, &c.,* are applied to them, 
all expressive of brightness of colour in its various 
shades. After a time these adjectives became sub- 
stantives. Just as harina, from meaning bright 
brown, came to mean the antelope, as we speak of a 
bay instead of a bay horse, the Vedic poets spoke of 
the Harits as the horses of the Sun and the Dawn, 
of the two Haris as the horses of Indra, of the 
Rohits as the horses of Agni or fire. After a time 
the etymological meaning of these words was lost 
sight of, and hari and harit became traditional 
names for the horses which either represented the 
Dawn and the Sun, or were supposed to be yoked to 
their chariots. When the Vedic poet says, ‘The 
Sun has yoked the Harits for his course, what did 
that language originally mean? It meant no more 
than what was manifest to every eye, namely, that 
the bright rays of lght which are seen at dawn 
before sunrise, gathered in the east, rearing up to the 
sky, and bounding forth in all directions with the 
quickness of lightning, draw forth the light of the 
sun, as horses draw the car of a warrior. But who 
can keep the reins of language? The bright ones, 


1M. M.’s Essay on Comparative Mythology, p. 82; Chips, ii. 134. 
Béhtlingk-Roth, Worterbuch, s. v. ‘asva.’ 

2 Cf. M. M.’s Essay on Comparative Mythology, pp. 81-83. Chips, 
ii. 183-136, 


4,72 CHAPTER IX, 


the Harits, run away like horses, and very soon they 
who were originally themselves the dawn, or the rays 
of the Dawn, are recalled to be yoked as horses to 
the car of the Dawn. Thus we read (Rigveda, vii. 
75, 6), ‘The bright brilliant horses are seen, bringing 
to us the shining Dawn.’ 

If it be asked how it came to pass that rays of light 
should be spoken of as horses, the most natural answer 
would be that it was a poetical expression such as any 
one might use. But if we watch the growth of lan- 
guage and poetry, we find that many of the later 
poetical expressions rest on the same metaphorical 
principle which we considered before as so important 
an agent in the original formation of nouns, and that 
they were suggested to later poets by earlier poets, 
i.e. by the framers of the very language which they 
spoke. Thus in our case we can see that the same 
name which was given to the flames of fire, namely, 
vahni, was likewise used as a name for horge, vahni 
being derived from a root vah, to carry along. There 
are several other names which rays of light and horses 
share in common, so that the idea of horse would 
naturally ring through the mind whenever these 
names for rays of light were touched. And here we 
are once again in the midst of mythology; for all 
the fables of Helios, the Sun, and his horses, flow 
irresistibly from this source. 

But more than this. Remember that one of the 
names given to the horses of the Sun was Harit; 
remember also that originally these horses of the Sun 
were intended for the rays of the Dawn, or, if you 
like, for the Dawn itself. In some passages the 


METAPHOR. 473 


Dawn is simply called asva, the mare, originally the 
racing light. Even in the Veda, however, the 
Harits are not always represented as mere horses, 
but assume occasionally, like the Dawn, a more 
human aspect. Thus (vii. 66, 15) they are called the. 
Seven Sisters, and in another passage (ix. 86, 37) 
they are represented with beautiful wings. Let us 
now see whether we can find any trace of these 
Harits or bright ones in Greek mythology, which, 
like Sanskrit, is but another dialect of the common 
Aryan mythology. If their name exists at all in 
Greek, it could only be under the form of Charis, 
Charites. The name, as you know, exists, but what 
is its meaning? It never means a horse. The name 
never passed through that phase in the minds of the 
Greek poets which is so familiar in the poetry of the 
Indian bards. It retained its etymological meaning 
of lustrous brightness, and became, as such, the name 
of the brightest brightness of the sky, of the dawn. 
In Homer, Charis is still used as one of the many 
names of Aphrodite, and, like Aphrodite, she is called 
the wife of Hephestos.1 Aphrodite, the sea-born, 
was originally the dawn, the most lovely of all the 
sights of nature, and hence very naturally raised in 


eed UsXVillaoo a: 

Thy Se t5€ mpopodovea Xapis AcTapoxpndepvos 
KAA) THY Tue wepiedvTos “Audryvnjets. 

In the Odyssey, the wife of Hephestos is Aphrodite ; and Nagelsbach, 
not perceiving the synonymous character of the two names, actually as- 
cribed the passage in Od. viii. to another poet, because the system of 
names in Homer, he says, is too firmly established to allow of such 
variation. He likewise considers the marriage of Hephestos as purely 
allegorical, (Homerische Theologie, p. 114.) 


4.7 4: CHAPTER IX. 


the Greek mind to the rank of goddess of beauty and 
love. As the Dawn is called in the Veda Duhita 
Divah, the daughter of Dyaus, Charis, the Dawn, 
is to the Greeks the daughter of Zeus. One of the 
names of Aphrodite, Argynnis, which the Greeks 
derived from a name of a sacred place near the 
Cephissus, where Argynnis, the beloved of <Aga- 
memnon, had died, has been identified! with the 
Sanskrit arguni, the bright, the name of the Dawn. 
In progress of time the different names of the Dawn 
ceased to be understood, and Hos, Ushas, as the most 
intelligible of them, became in Greece the chief repre- 
sentative of the deity of the morning, drawn, as in 
the Veda, by her bright horses. Aphrodite, the sea- 
born, also called Hnalia? and Pontia, became the 
goddess of beauty and love, though she was afterwards 
degraded by an admixture of Syrian mythology. 
Charis, on the contrary, was merged in the Charites,® 
who instead of being, as in India, the horses of the 
Dawn, were changed by an equally natural process 
into the attendants of the bright gods, and particu- 
larly of Zeus* and Aphrodite, whom ‘they wash at 

* Sonne, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, x. 350. Rigveda, i. 49,3. Arguna, 
a name Of Indra, mentioned in the Brahmanas, &c. 

2 Of. Apy& yésha, Rigveda, x. 10,4; dpya yéshana, 11, 2. 

* Kuhn, Zeitschrift, i. 518, x. 125. The same change of one deity 
into many took place in the case of the Moira, or fate. The passages 
in Homer where more than one Moira are mentioned, are considered as 
not genuine (Od. vii. 197, Il. xxiv. 49); but Hesiod and the later poets 
are familiar with the plurality of the Moiras. See Nigelsbach, Nach- 
homerische Theologie, p. 150. Welcker, Griechische Gotterlehre, p. 53. 

* Phidias represented the gods in the Olympic temple in the following 
order: dvaBeSnkas ént Gpua“HrA1os wal Zev’s ré éore kal “Hpa, rapa 8é 
avtov Xdpis* Tavtns 5é ‘Epyns €xerat, Tov ‘Eppod dé ‘Eoria’ peta &e riv 
‘Eotiav “Epws éorivy éx Oaddoons Adpoditny dyviotaay bnodexdpevos’ Tiv 


METAPHOR. 4.75 


Paphos and anoint with oil,’! as if in remembrance of 
their descent from the root ghar, which, as we saw, 
meant to anoint, to render brilliant by oil? 

It has been considered a fatal objection to the 
history of the word Charis, as here given, that in. 
Greek it would be impossible to separate Charis from 
other words of a more general meaning. ‘ What 
shall we do, says Curtius,® ‘ with charis, chard, chatré, 
chartzomai, charteis?’ Why, it would be extra- 
ordinary if such words did not exist, if the root ghar 
had become withered as soon as it had produced this 
one name of Charis. These words which Curtius 
enumerates are nothing but collateral offshoots of the 
same root which produced the Harits in India and 
Charis in Greece. In Sanskrit, too, we cannot separate 
haryati, from harit, yet the one means to like, like 
chatrein, in Greek, the other means the horses of 
the Dawn, like Charis, the Dawn. One of the deriva- 
tives of the root har was carried off by the stream of 
mythology, the others remained on their native soil. 
Thus the root dyu or div gives rise among others to 
the name of Zeus, in Sanskrit Dyaus; but this is no 
reason why the same word should not be used in the 
original sense of heaven, and produce other nouns 
expressive of light, day, and similar notions. The 
very word which in most Slavonic languages appears 


de “Appoditny orepavot Tedw, “Emeipyaora 5é nal ’AwéAAwy ody ’Aprté- 
pedi, AOnva Te at ‘HpaxAns, kai 75n Tod Babpov mpos T@ wépati Auditpity 
kal Tloved@v, SeAnvn Te immov éuol Soxeiv éXavvovsa. Paus, v. 11. 8. 

1 Od. vii. 364. 

* In German mythology the legends of Gerda, the beloved of Freyr, 
also some of the Hilda stories, seem to flow from the same source. 

* Curtius, G. LH. 12 976 


476 CHAPTER IX. 


in the sense of brightness, has in Illyrian, under the 
form of zora, become the name of the Dawn.1 Are 
we to suppose that Charis in Greek meant first grace, 
beauty, and was then raised to the rank of an abstract 
deity? It would be difficult to find another such 
deity in Homer, originally a mere abstract concep- 
tion,” and yet made of such flesh and bone as Charis, 
the wife of Hephcestos. Or shall we suppose that 
Charis was first, for some reason or other, the wife 
of Hepheestos, and that her name afterwards dwindled 
down to mean splendour® or charm in general; so 
that another goddess, Athene, could be said to 
shower charis or charms upon a man? To this, too, 
I doubt whether any parallel could be found in 
Homer. Everything, on the contrary, is clear and 
natural, if we admit that from the root ghar or har, 
to be fat, to be glittering, was derived, besides harit, 
the bright horse of the Sun in Sanskrit, and Charis, 
the bright Dawn in Greece, chdris meaning brightness 
and fatness, then gladness and pleasantness in general, 
according to a metaphor so common in ancient 
language. It may seem strange to us that the 
charis, that indescribable grace of Greek poetry and 
art, should come from a root meaning to be fat, 
to be greasy. Yet lipards, too, meant fat and oily 
before it meant lovely. As fat and greasy infants 
grow into ‘airy, fairy Lilians, so do words and ideas. 
The Psalmist (exxxiii. 2) does not shrink from even 
bolder metaphors. ‘Behold, how good and how 
* Pictet, Origines, i. 155 ; Sonne, Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, x. 354. 


? See Kuhn, Herabholung des Feuers, p. 17. 
5 Sonne, J. c. x. 355-6. 


METAPHOR. 477 


pleasant (charéen) it is for brethren to dwell together 
in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the 
head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s 
beard: that went down to the skirts of his gar- 
ments.’ ; 

After the Greek chdris had grown, and assumed 
the sense of charm, such as it was conceived by the 
most highly-cultivated of races, no doubt it reacted 
on the mythological Charis and Charites, and made 
them the embodiment of all that the Greeks had 
learnt to call lovely and graceful, so that in the end 
it is sometimes difficult to say whether chdris is 
meant as an appellative or as a mythological proper 
name. Yet though thus converging in the later 
Greek, the starting-points of the two words were 
clearly distinct—as distinct at least as those of arka, 
sun, and arka, hymn of praise, which we examined 
before, or as Dyaus, Zeus, a masculine, and dyaus, 
a feminine, meaning heaven and day. Which of the 
two is older, the appellative or the proper name, 
Charis, the bright dawn, or chdris, loveliness, is a 
question which it is impossible to answer, though 
Curtius declares in favour of the priority of the 
appellative. This is by no means so certain as he 
imagines. I fully agree with him when he says that 
no etymology of any proper name can be satisfactory 
which fails to explain the appellative nouns with 
which it is connected; but the etymology of Charis 
does not fail there. On the contrary, it lays bare the 
deepest roots from which all its cognate offshoots can 
be fully traced both in form and meaning, and it can 
defy the closest criticism, both of the student of 


478 CHAPTER IX. 


comparative philology and of the lover of ancient 
mythology.? 

In the cases which we have hitherto examined, a 
mythological misunderstanding arose from the fact 
that one and the same root was made to yield the 
names of different conceptions; that after a time the 
two names were supposed to be one and the same, 
which led to the transference of the meaning of one 
to the other. There was one point of similarity 
between the bright bear and the bright stars to justify 
the ancient framers of language in deriving from the 
same root the names of both. But when the similarity 
in quality was mistaken for identity in substance, 
mythology became inevitable. ‘The fact of the seven 
bright stars being called Arktos, and being supposed to 
mean the bear, I call mythology ; and it is important 
to observe that this myth has no connection whatever 
with religious ideas, or with the so-called gods of an- 
tiquity. The legend of Kallisto, the beloved of Zeus, 
and the mother of Arkas, has nothing to do with 
the original naming of the stars. On the contrary, 
Kallisto was supposed to have been changed into the 
Arktos, or the Great Bear, because she was the mother 
of Arkas, that is to say, of the Arcadian or bear 
race; and her name, or that of her son, reminded 
the Greeks of their long-established name of the 
Northern constellation. Here, then, we have my- 
thology apart from religion ; we have a mythological 
misunderstanding very like in character to those 
which we alluded to in ‘ Palestine soup’ and La Tour 
Sans VENiN. 

’ See Appendix at the end of this Chapter, p. 484. 


METAPHOR. 479 


Cases of Poetical Metaphors. 


Let us now consider another class of metaphorical 
expressions. The first class comprehended those cases 
which owed their origin to the fact that two substan- 
tially distinet conceptions received their name from 
the same root, differently applied. The metaphor 
had taken place simultaneously with the formation of 
the words; the root itself and its meaning had been 
modified in being adapted to the different conceptions 
that waited to be named. This is radical metaphor. 
If, on the contrary, we take such a word as star and 
apply it to a flower; if we take the word ship and 
apply it to a cloud, or wing and apply it to a sail; if 
we call the swn horse, or the moon cow; or with 
verbs, if we take such a verb as to die and apply it to 
the setting sun, or if we read, 


The sunlight clasps the earth, 
And the moonbeams kiss the sea,! 


we have throughout poetical metaphors. These, too, 
are of very frequent occurrence in the history of early 
language and early thought. 


The Golden-handed Sun. 


It was, for instance, a very natural idea for people 
who watched the golden beams of the sun playing as 
it were with the foliage of the trees, to speak of these 
outstretched rays as hands or arms. Thus we see that 


* Cox, Tules of the Gods and Heroes, p. 55. Mythology of Greece 
and Italy, by Keightley, p. 9. 


480 CHAPTER IX. 


in the Veda,! Savitar, one of the names of the sun, is 
called golden-handed. Who would have thought that 
such a simple metaphor could ever have caused any 
mythological misunderstanding? Nevertheless, we find 
that the commentators of the Veda see in the name 
golden-handed, as applied to the Sun, not the golden 
splendour of his rays, but the gold which he carries 
in his hands, and which he is ready to shower on his 
pious worshippers. A kind of moral is drawn from 
the old natural epithet, and people are encouraged to 
worship the sun because he has gold in his hands to 
bestow on his priests. We have a proverb in German, 
‘ Morgenstuwnde hat Gold im Munde, ‘Morning-hour 
has gold in her mouth,’ which is intended to inculcate 
the same lesson as 


Early to bed and early to rise, 
Makes a man healthy, and wealthy, and wise. 


But the origin of the German proverb is mythological. 
It was the conception of the dawn as the golden light, 
some similarity like that between awrwm and aurora, 
which suggested the proverbial or mythological ex- 
pression of the ‘golden-mouthed Dawn’-—for many 
proverbs are chips of mythology. But to return to 
the golden-handed Sun. He was not only turned 
into a lesson, but he also grew into a respectable 
myth. Whether people failed to see the natural 
meaning of the golden-handed Sun, or whether they 
would not see it, certain it is that the early theolo- 

* i,22,5: ‘hiranyapainim fitaye Savitaram upa hvaye. 

i, 85, 9: ‘Shiranyapanikz Savita vikarshanid ubhe dyava- 


prithivi antar iyate,’ 
i, 35,10; ‘hiranyahasta.’ 


METAPHOR. 481 


gical treatises of the Brahmans tell of the Sun as 
having cut his hand at a sacrifice, and the priests 
having replaced it by an artificial hand made of gold. 
Nay, in later times, the Sun, under the name of 
Savitar, becomes himself a priest, and a legend is 
told how at a sacrifice he eut off his hand, and how 
the other priests made a golden hand for him. 

All these myths and legends which we have hitherto 
examined are clear enough ; they are like fossils of the 
most recent period, and their similarity with living 
Species is not to be mistaken. But if we dig some- 
what deeper, the similarity is less palpable, though 
it may be traced by careful research. If the German 
god Tyr, whom Grimm identifies with the Sanskrit 
sun-god,' is spoken of as one-handed, it is because 
the name of the golden-handed Sun had led to the 
conception of the Sun with one artificial hand, and 
afterwards, by a strict logical conclusion, to a sun 
with but one hand. Each nation invented its own 
story how Savitar or Tyr came to lose his hand: 
and while the priests of India imagined that Savitar 
hurt his hand at a sacrifice, the sportsmen of the 
North told how Tyr placed his hand, as a pledge, into 
the mouth of the wolf, and how the wolf bit it off. 
Grimm compares the legend of Tyr placing his hand, 
as a pledge, into the mouth of the wolf, and thus losing 
it, with an Indian legend of Sitrya or Savitar, the 
Sun, laying hold of a sacrificial animal and losing his 
hand by its bite. This explanation is possible, but 
it wants confirmation, particularly as the one-handed 


) * Deutsche Mythologie, xlvii. p. 187. 
ay Tet 


482 CHAPTER IX, 


German god 7'yr has been accounted for in some other 
way. Tyr is the god of victory, as Wackernagel points 
out, and as victory can only be on one side, the god of 
victory might well have been thought of and spoken 
of as himself one-handed.! 

It was a simple case of poetical metaphor if the 
Greeks spoke of the stars as the eyes of the night. 
But when they speak of Argos the all-seeing (Pandptes), 
and tell of his body being covered with eyes, we have 
a clear case of mythology. 

It is likewise perfectly intelligible when the poets 
of the Veda speak of the Maruts or storms as 
singers. This is no more than when poets speak of 
the music of the winds; and in German such an ex- 
pression as ‘The wind sings’ (der Wind singt) means 
no more than the wind blows. But when the Maruts 
are called not only singers, but musicians—nay, wise 
poets in the Veda*—then again language has ex- 
ceeded its proper limits, and has landed us in the 
realm of fables. 

Although the distinction between radical and 
poetical metaphor is very essential, and helps us more 
than anything else toward a clear perception of the 
origin of fables, it must be admitted that there are 
cases where it is difficult to carry out this distinction. 
If modern poets call the clouds mountains, this is 
clearly poetical metaphor; for mountain, by itself, 
never means cloud. But when we see that in the 
Veda the clouds are constantly called parvata, and 
that parvata means, etymologically, knotty or 


1 Schweitzer Museum, i. 107. 
? Rigveda, i. 19, 4; 38,15; 52,15. Kuhn, Zettschrif¢, i. 521, 


METAPHOR. 483 


rugged, it is difficult to say positively whether in 
India the clouds were called mountains by a simple 
poetical metaphor, or whether both the clouds and 
the mountains were from the beginning conceived as 
full of ruggedness and undulation, and thence called 
parvata.' The result, however, is the same—namely, 
mythology; for if in the Veda it is said that the 
Maruts or storms make the mountains to tremble 
(i. 39, 5), or pass through the mountains (i. 116, 20), 
this, though meaning originally that the storms made 
the clouds shake, or passed through the clouds, came 
to mean, in the eyes of later commentators, that the 
Maruts actually shook the mountains and rent them 
asunder. 


1 See Rigveda-Sanhita, translated by M. M., vol. i. p. 43. 


112 


484 CHAPTER IX. 


APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. 


Dr. SONNE, in several learned articles published in 
Kuhn’s Zeitschrift (x. 96, 161, 321, 401), has subjected 
my conjecture as to the identity of harit and chdris 
to the most searching criticism. On most points I 
fully agree with him, as he will see from the more 
complete statement of my views given in this Chapter; 
and I feel most grateful to him for much additional 
light which his exhaustive treatise has thrown on the 
subject. We differ as to the original meaning of the 
root ghar, which Dr. Sonne takes to be effusion or 
shedding of light, while I ascribe to it the meaning of 
glittering and fatness; yet we meet again in the 
explanation of such words as ghrin4a, pity ; haras, 
wrath ; hrani, wrath; hrinite, he is angry. These 
meanings Dr. Sonne explains by a reference to the 
Russian kraska, colour; krasnot, red, beautiful; krasa, 
beauty ; krasnjeti, to blush; krasovatisja, to rejoice. 
Dr. Sonne is certainly right in doubting the identity 
of chairé and Sanskrit hrish, the Latin horreo, and 
in explaining chairé as the Greek form of ghar, to be 
bright and glad, conjugated according to the fourth 
class. Whether the Sanskrit haryati, he desires, 
is the Greek thélei, nay the Gothic wiljan, seems to 
me doubtful, though, no doubt, there are analogies in 
Greek thermés and Gothic warmjan.} 


1 See Brugmann, Grundriss, § 423. 


APPENDIX. 485 


Why Dr. Sonne should prefer to identify chdris, 
charitos with the Sanskrit hdéri, rather than with 
harit, he does not state. Is it on account of the 
accent? I certainly think that there was a form 
charis, corresponding to héri, and I should derive 
from it the accusative chdérin, instead of chadrita ; also 
adjectives like charfeis (harivat). But I should 
certainly retain the base which we have in harit, 
in order to explain such forms as chdris, chdritos. 
That chéris in Greek ever passed through the same 
metamorphosis as the Sanskrit harit, that it ever to 
a Greek mind conveyed the meaning of horse, there 
is no evidence whatever. Greek and Sanskrit myths, 
hke Greek and Sanskrit words, must be treated as 
co-ordinate, not as subordinate; nor have I ever, as 
far as I recollect, referred Greek myths or Greek 
words to Sanskrit as their prototypes. What I said 
about the Charites was very little. On page 81 
of my Hssay on Comparative Mythology, I said :— 

In other passages, however, they (the Harits) take a more 
human form; and as the Dawn, which is sometimes simply 
called asva, the mare, is well known by the name of the sister, 
these Harits also are called the Seven Sisters (vii. 66, 15); and 
in one passage (ix. 86, 37) they appear as the Harits with 
beautiful wings. After this I need hardly say that we have here 
the prototype of the Grecian Charites. 

If on any other occasion I had derived Greek from 
Sanskrit myths, or, as Dr. Sonne expresses it, ethnic 
from ethnic myths, instead of deriving both from 
a common Aryan or pro-ethnic source, my words 
might have been lable to misapprehension.! But 


' TI ought to mention, however, that Mr. Cox, in the Introduction to 
his Zales of the Gods and Heroes, p. 67, has understood my words in 


486 CHAPTER IX. 


as they stand in my essay, they were only intended 
to point out that, after tracing the Harits to their 
most primitive source, and after showing how, starting 
from thence, they entered on their mythological career 
in India, we might discover there, in their earliest 
form, the mould in which the myth of the Greek 
Charites was cast, while such epithets as ‘the sisters,’ 
and ‘with beautiful wings,’ might indicate how con- 
ceptions that remained sterile in Indian mythology, 
grew up under a Grecian sky into those charming 
human forms which we have all learned to admire in 
the Graces of Hellas. That I had recognised the 
personal identity, if we may say so, of the Greek 
Charis, the Aphrodite, the Dawn, and the Sanskrit 
Ushas, the Dawn, will be seen from a short sentence 
towards the end of my essay, p. 86: 


He (Eros) is the youngest of the gods, the son of Zeus, the 
friend of the Charites ; also the son of the chief Charis, Aphio- 
dite, in whom we can hardly fail to discover a female Hos (an 
Usha, Dawn, instead of an Agni aushasya). 


Dr. Sonne will thus perceive that our roads, even 
where they do not exactly coincide, run parallel, and 
that we work in the same spirit and with the same 
objects in view. 

For other mythological developments of the root 
ghar, see Biographies of Words, p. 1, Fors Fortuna. 
the same sense as Dr. Sonne. ‘ The horses of the sun,’ he writes, ‘are 
called Harits; and in these we have the prototype of the Greek 
Charites—an inverse transmutation, for while in the other instances the 


human is changed into a brute personality, in this the beasts are con- 
verted into maidens,’ 


CHAPTER X. 


THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 


Contrast between Greek Culture and Greek Religion. 


O those who are acquainted with the history of 
Greece, and have learnt to appreciate the intel- 
Jectual, moral, and artistic excellencies of the Greek 
mind, it has often been a subject of wonderment how 
such a nation could have accepted, could have tolerated 
for a moment, such a religion. What the inhabitants 
of the small city of Athens achieved in philosophy, in 
poetry, in art, in science, in politics, is known to all of 
us; and our admiration for them increases tenfold if, 
by a study of other literatures, such as the literatures 
of India, Persia, and China, we are enabled to compare 
their achievements with those of other nations of an- 
tiquity. The rudiments of almost everything, with 
the exception of religion, we, the people of Europe, 
the heirs to a fortune accumulated during twenty or 
thirty centuries of intellectual toil, owe to the Greeks ; 
and, strange as it may sound, but few, I think, would 
gainsay it,—to the present day the achievements of 
these our distant ancestors and earliest masters, the 
songs of Homer, the dialogues of Plato, the speeches 
of Demosthenes, and the statues of Phidias stand, if 


488 CHAPTER X, 


not unrivalled, at least unsurpassed by anything that 
has been achieved by their descendants and pupils. 
How the Greeks came to be what they were, and how. 
alone of all other nations, they opened almost every 
mine of thought that has since been worked by man- 
kind ; how they invented and perfected almost every 
style of poetry and prose which has since been cul- 
tivated by the greatest minds of our race; how they 
laid the lasting foundation of the principal arts and 
sciences, and in some of them achieved triumphs never 
since equalled, is a problem which neither historian 
nor philosopher has as yet been able to solve. Like 
their own goddess Athene, a people seems at Athens 
to spring full armed into the arena of history, and we 
look in vain to Egypt, Syria, or India for more than 
a few of the seeds that burst into such marvellous 
growth on the soil of Attica. 

But the more we admire the native genius of Hellas, 
the more we feel surprised at the crudities and ab- 
surdities of what is handed down to us as their reli- 
gion. Their earliest philosophers knew as well as we 
that the Deity, in order to be Deity, must be either 
perfect or nothing—that it must be one, not many, 
and without parts and passions; yet they believed in 
many gods, and ascribed to all of them, and more 
particularly to Jupiter, almost every vice and weak- 
ness that disgraces human nature. Their poets had 
an instinctive aversion to everything excessive or 
monstrous; yet they would relate of their gods what 
would make the most savage of the Red Indians creep 
and shudder :—how that Uranos was maimed by his 
son Kronos—how Kronos swallowed his own children, 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 489 


and, after years of digestion, vomited out alive his 
whole progeny—how Apollo, their fairest god, hung 
Marsyas on a tree and flayed him alive—how Demeter, 
the sister of Zeus, partook of the shoulder of Pelops 
who had been butchered and roasted by his own. 
father, Tantalus, as a feast for the gods. I will not 
add any further horrors, or dwell on crimes that have 
become unmentionable, but of which the most highly 
cultivated Greek had to tell his sons and daughters in 
teaching them the history of their gods and heroes. 


Protests of Greek Philosophers. 


It would indeed be a problem, more difficult than 
the problem of the origin of these stories themselves, 
if the Greeks, such as we know them, had never been 
startled by this, had never asked, How can these 
things be, and how did such stories spring up? But 
be it said to the honour of Greece,—although her 
philosophers did not succeed in explaining the origin 
of these religious fables, they certainly were, from the 
earliest times, shocked by them. Xenophanes, who 
lived, as far as we know, before Pythagoras, accuses ! 
Homer and Hesiod of having ascribed to the gods 
everything that is disgraceful among men—stealing, 
adultery, and deceit. He remarks that? men seem to 


Tldvra Oeois dvéOnxav “Opnpés 6° ‘Hatodéds TE, 
daca Tap dvOpwroow dveldea Kal poyos COT Vale eas 
“Os mrELoT? épbeyEavro Oeav abepiotia epya, 
KNETTEW porxeveY TE Kal GhAnAous amarevery. 

GE Seatus Emp. adv. Math. i. 289, ix. 193. 
"AAAd Bporol dSoxéovar Oeods yevernoia, 

THY operépny 7 aicOnow éxev govnv re Séuas Te... , 
"AAX’ etrou xeEipas y eixov Bdes He A€ovTes, 


490 CHAPTER X. 


have created their gods, and to have given to them 
their own mind, voice, and figure; that the Ethio- 
pians made their gods black and flat-nosed, the 
Thracians red-haired and blue-eyed—just as cows 
or lions, if they could but draw, would draw their 
gods like cows and lions. He himself declares, in 
the most unhesitating manner—and this nearly 600 
years before our era—that ‘God? is one, the greatest 
among gods and men, neither in form nor in thought 
like unto men. He ealls the battles of the Titans, 
the Giants, and Centaurs, the inventions of former 
generations? (7Adopara tév mpotépwy), and requires 
that the Deity should be praised in holy stories and 
pure strains. 

Similar sentiments were entertained by most of the 
great philosophers of Greece. Heraclitus seems to 
have looked upon the Homeric system of theology, 
if we may so call it, as flippant infidelity. Accord- 
ing to Diogenes Laertius,? Heraclitus declared that 
Homer, as well as Archilochus, deserved to be ejected 
from public assemblies and flogged. The same author 


7) ypawar x€ipecou Kal Epya TeAciy Amep avopes, 
kal Ke Oewv idéas Eypapoy Kal cwpaT’ éroiovy 
To.avd oidvy wep KavTol Séuas efyov dpotor, 
immo. pev @ immoot, Boes 5€ TE Bovow spoia. 
Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 601 C. 
1 Eis eds év Te Oeotor Kal dvOpwroiot péyoTos, 
ov Te Sépuas Ovnrotot Gpotios ovd5e vdonpa. 
Cf. Clem. Alex. ibid. 
? Cf. Isocrates, li. 88 (Nagelsbach, p. 45). 
> Tov @ “Opnpov epackev agiov éx THY aywvow ExBadrdEoOa Kal farTi- 
(ec0a, kat "Apxidoxov époiws —Diog. Laert. ix. 1. 
"HoéByoe ei pr) HAAnYopice, “Opnpos. Bertrand, Les Dieux Protecteurs, 
p. 148. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 49] 


relates’ a story that Pythagoras saw the soul of 
Homer in the lower world hanging on a tree, and 
surrounded by serpents, as a punishment for what 
he had said of the gods. No doubt the views of these 
philosophers about the gods were far more exalted - 
and pure than those of the Homeric poets, who repre- 
sented their gods as in many cases hardly better than 
men. But as religion became mixed up with polities, 
it was more and more dangerous to profess these 
sublimer views, or to attempt to explain the Homeric 
myths in any but the most literal sense. Anaxagoras, 
who endeavoured to give to the Homeric legends a 
moral meaning, and is said to have interpreted the 
names of the gods allegorically—nay, to have called 
Fate an empty name, was thrown into prison at 
Athens, from whence he only escaped through the 
powerful protection of his friend and pupil Pericles. 
Protagoras, another friend of Pericles,? was expelled 
from Athens, and his books were publicly burnt, 
because he had said that nothing could be known 
about the gods, whether they existed or no.® Socrates, 


4 ee. & ‘Iepwvupos naredOdvta avroy eis adou Tv pev ‘Horddov potiy 
idety mpds xiovt MESES RTL Kat TpiGovcar, THY 5 “Ounpov xpepapévny 
dnd Sévipov kat dpas rept aitiy av0 dv efmov mept Oe@v.—Diog. Laert. 
viii. 21. 

2 Aoke’ 5é mpOros, Kad. gna HELV év mavTodany ES TV 
“Opnpou moinow atopnvacbar evar mEpt apeTns Kal SULCLOOU ETS: én mA€ov 
de paca uiuas TOU Adyou My7 podmpov TOV WUT INE yvwpipmov OvTa avrod, 
dv Kal mp@Tov onovddoa Tod moinTod mEpt THY puoLKhy mparyyaTeiay.— 
Diog. Laert. ii. 11. 

: Tep! bev Oey ovK xe eidévar ov0 ws eiciv, ovO ds ovK elciv’ TOAAG 
yap Ta KwAVovTA eiDevat qT. "Gdn horns kat Bpaxds av 6 Bios Tod Or epem gu: 
Aa Tavray 5é Hee apxnyv Tod ovyypdpuaros efeBAnOn mpos ’A@nvaiwy: kat Ta 
BiBXia abrot Katéxavoay év Th ayopa, tTd KHpukos avadegduevoar Tap’ éExdo- 
Tou Tay KexTnuévow,—Diog. Laert. ix. 51. Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 23, 63. 


492 CHAPTER X. 


though he never attacked the sacred traditions and 
popular legends,’ was suspected of being no very 
strict believer in the ancient Homeric theology, and 
he had to suffer martyrdom. After the death of 
Socrates greater freedom of thought was permitted 
at Athens in exchange for the loss of political liberty. 
Plato declared that many a myth had a symbolical 
or allegorical meaning ; but he insisted, nevertheless, 
that the Homeric poems, such as they were, should be 
banished from his Republic.?, Nothing can be more 
distinct and outspoken than the words attributed to 
Epicurus: ‘The gods are indeed, but they are not as 
the many believe them to be. Not he is an infidel 
who denies the gods of the many, but he who fastens 
on the gods the opinions of the many.’ ? 

In still later times an accommodation was attempted 
between mythology and philosophy. Chrysippus (died 
207), after stating his views about the immortal gods, 
is said to have written a second book to show how 
these might be brought into harmony with the fables 
of Homer.* 

And not philosophers only felt these difficulties 
about the gods as represented by Homer and Hesiod ; 

1 Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 504. 


? Ods ‘Hotodds ze, eftov, nai "Opnpos hiv éreyérnv Kal of GAXor momnTat’ 
ovTo yap Tov pvOous Tots avOpwros Wevdeis cuvTibévTes eAdeysy TE Kal 
A€éyouow.—Plat. Polit. 8. 377d. Grote, History, i. 598. 

* Diog. Laert. x. 123. Ritter and Preller, Historia Philosophie, 
p- 419. Ocol wey yap eiow: evapyhs 5€ ear adta&v % yvots: otovs 8 
avTovs of moAXol vopiCovo. ov eiciv: ov yap puddtrovow avrods otous 
vopivovow, daoeBis 8 ovx 6 Tos THY TOAABY Oeodrs dvapoy, GAN 6 Tas 
Tav ToAAGY Sdgas Oeols TpocdTTHY. 

* «Tn secundo autem libro Homeri fabulas accommodare voluit ad ea 
quz ipse primo libro de diis immortalibus dixerit.—Cic. Nat. Deor. 
1.15. Bertrand, Sur les Dieux Protecteurs (Rennes, 1858), p. 88. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 4.93 


most of the ancient poets also were distressed by the 
same doubts, and constantly find themselves involved 
in contradictions which they are unable to solve. 
Thus, in the Eumenides of Mschylus (v. 640), the 
Chorus asks how Zeus could have called on Orestes — 
to avenge the murder of his father, he who himself 
had dethroned his father and bound him in chains. 
Pindar, who is fond of weaving the traditions of 
gods and heroes into his songs of victory, suddenly 
starts when he meets with anything dishonourable to 
the gods. ‘Lips,’ he says,! ‘throw away this word, 
for it is an evil wisdom to speak evil of the gods.’ 
His criterion in judging of mythology would seem to 
have been very simple and straightforward, namely, 
that nothing can be true in mythology that is dis- 
honourable to the gods. The whole poetry of Lwri- 
pides oscillates between two extremes : he either taxes 
the gods with all the injustice and crimes they are 
fabled to have committed, or he turns round and 
denies the truth of the ancient myths because they 
relate of the gods what is incompatible with a divine 
nature. Thus, while in the Ion,? the gods, even 
Apollo, Jupiter, and Neptune, are accused of every 


* Olymp. ix. 38, ed. Boekh : ’Amé pot Adyov TodTov, ordpa, pipov’ érei 
TO ye AowWopHaat Oeods éxOpa codia. 
2 Ton, 444, ed. Paley : 
Ei 37, ob ydp éora, 7G Adyw BE yphoopuar, 
dixas Bialwy Shoer’ avOpwros yapwr, 
ov Kal Mocedav Zevs 0 ds obpavod Kparee, 
vaovs TivovTes ddikias KevwoeTe. ... . 
ovKéT GvOpwrous Kakods 
A€eyev Sincuov, ei Ta TOV Oe@v KaKa 
Hipovpel’, GAA Tods SiddcKovTas TaA5e. 


Cf. Here. fur. 339. 


4,94, CHAPTER X, 


crime, we read in another play:? ‘I do not think that 
the gods delight in unlawful marriages, nor did I ever 
hold or shall ever believe that they fasten chains on 
their hands, or that one is lord of another. For a god, 
if he is really god, has no need of anything: these 
are the miserable stories of poets!’ Or, again?: ‘If 
the gods commit anything that is evil, they are no 
gods.’ 

These passages, to which many more might be 
added, will be sufficient to show that the more 
thoughtful among the Greeks were as much startled 
at their mythology as we are. They would not have 
been Greeks if they had not seen that those fables 
were irrational, if they had not perceived that the 
whole of their mythology presented a problem that 
required a solution at the hand of the philosopher. 
If the Greeks did not succeed in solving it, if they 
preferred a compromise between what they knew to 
be true and what they knew to be false, if the wisest 
among their wise men spoke cautiously on the subject 
or kept aloof from it altogether, let us remember that 
these myths, which we now handle as freely as the 
geologist his fossil bones, were then living things, 
sacred things, implanted by parents in the minds of 


1 Here. fur. 1341, ed. Paley: 
"Ey® 5é€ tots Oeods ovTE AEKTP a pr) Oéuts 
oTépyev vopi(w, decua 7 edmrew yepoiv 
ovT’ 7kiwoa mwmoT’ ovTE TEicoLMaL, 
008’ dAXAov GAAov Seondtyv wepuKéeva. 
SeiTar yap 6 Oeds, eimep Ear OvTas Ges, 
ovdevds* dodav olde SVaTHVOL Adour. 
See Euripides, ed. Paley, vol. i. Preface, p. xx. 
? Eur. Fragm. Belleroph. 300: €i Ooi te SpHow aicyporv, odK eiolv 
Geol, 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 4.95 


their children, accepted with an unquestioning faith, 
hallowed by the memory of the departed, sanctioned 
by the state, the foundation on which some of the 
most venerable institutions had been built up and 
established for ages. It is enough for us to know 
that the Greeks expressed surprise and dissatisfaction 
at these fables: to explain their origin was a task left 
to a more dispassionate age. 


Ethical Interpretations. 


The principal solutions that offered themselves to 
the Greeks, when inquiring into the origin of their 
mythology, may be classed under three heads, which 
I call ethical, physical, historical, according to the dit- 
ferent objects which the original framers of mythology 
were supposed to have had in view. 

Seeing how powerful an engine was supplied by 
religion for awing individuals and keeping political 
communities in order, some Greeks imagined that the 
stories telling of the omniscience and omnipotence of 
the gods, of their rewarding the good and punishing 
the wicked, were invented by wise people of old for 
the improvement and better government of men.2 
This view, though extremely shallow, and supported 
by no evidence, was held by many among the ancients; 
and even Aristotle, though admitting, as we shall see, 
a deeper foundation of religion, was inclined to con- 
sider the mythological form of the Greek religion as 


+ Cf. Augustinus, De Civ. Dei, vii, 5: ‘De paganorum secretiore 
doctrina physicisque rationibus.’ 

* Cf. Wagner, Fragm. Trag. iii. p. 102. Nagelsbach, Nachhomerische 
Theologie, pp. 435, 445, 


496 CHAPTER X. 


invented for the sake of persuasion, and as useful for 
the support of law and order. Well might Cicero, 
when examining this view, exclaim, ‘Have not those 
who said that the idea of immortal gods was made 
up by wise men for the sake of the commonwealth, in 
order that those who could not be led by reason 
might be led to their duty by religion, destroyed all 
religion from the bottom?’! Nay, it would seem to 
follow that if the useful portions of mythology were 
invented by wise men, the immoral stories about gods 
and men must be ascribed to foolish poets—a view, 
as we saw before, more than hinted at by Euripides. 


Physical Interpretations. 


A second class of interpretations may be eompre- 
hended under the name of physical, using that term in 
the most general sense, so as to include even what are 
commonly ealled metaphysical interpretations. Ac- 
cording to this school of interpreters, it was the 
intention of the authors of mythology to convey to 
the people at large a knowledge of certain facts of 
nature, or certain views of natural philosophy, which 
they did in a phraseology peculiar to themselves or 
to the times they lived in, or, according to others, in 
a language that was to veil rather than to unveil the 
mysteries of their sacred wisdom. As all interpreters 
of this class, though differing on the exact original 
intention of each individual myth, agree in this, that 
no myth must be understood literally, their system 
of interpretation is best known under the name of 


1 Cic. W. D. i. 42, 118. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 497 


allegorical, allegorical being the most general name 
for that kind of language which says one thing but 
means another.! 

So early a philosopher as Epicharmus,? the pupil of 
Pythagoras, declared that the gods were really the winds, 
the water, the earth, the sun, the fire, and the stars. Not 
long after him, Hmpedocles (about 444 8.0.) ascribed 
to the names of Zeus, Here, Aidoneus, and Nestis, the 
meaning of the four elements, fire, air, earth, and 
water.’ Whatever the philosophers of Greece suc- 
cessively discovered as the first principles of being and 
thought, whether the air of Anaximenes* (about 548), 
or the fire of Heraclitus® (about 503), or the Nous, the 
mind, of Anaxagoras (died 428), was gladly identified 
by them with Jupiter or other divine powers. Anax- 
agoras and his school are said to have explained the 


* Cf, Miiller, Prolegomena, p. 335, n. 6: GAAO pey ayopevel, GAXo Be 
voet. ‘The difference between a myth and an allegory has been simply 
but most happily explained by Professor Blackie, in his article on My- 
thology in Chambers’ Cyclopedia: ‘A myth is not to be confounded 
with an allegory ; the one being an unconscious act of the popular mind 
at an early stage of society, the other a conscious act of the individual 
mind at any stage of social progress,’ 

? Stobzeus, Flor. xci. 29: 

‘O pev “Entxyappos Tots Oeods efvar A€yer 

“Avépous, Sup, viv, hAvov, mop, dorépas. 
Cf. Bernays, Rhein. Mus. 1858, p. 280. Kruseman, Epicharmi Frag- 
menta, Harlemi, 1834. 

* Plut. de Plac. Phil. i. 30: "Eumedondfs ptow pndiv evar, pig 82 

Tov oToLXElww Kal BidoTacw. ypaper yap otrws év TO mpuTH pratKd. 
Téooapa Tov mavTav piCwpata mp@rov dove 
Zevs apyns “Hpn te, pepécBios 75° Aidwvevs, 
Nijoris 8 i) daxptous réyyer Kpodywpa Bpdreor. 

* Cic. N. D.i.10. Ritter and Preller, § 27. 

* Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 603 D. Ritter and Preller, § 38. Ber- 
nays, Neue Bruchstiicke des Heraklit, p. 256: @ 170 copdy podvoy 
A€éyeoOar EOéAEL, Kal ovK eOéAEL Zyvos odvopa. 


i talk 


498 CHAPTER X. 


whole of the Homeric mythology allegorically. With 
them Zeus was mind, Athene, art; while Metrodorus, 
the contemporary of Anaxagoras, ‘resolved not only 
the persons of Zeus, Here, and Athene, but also those 
of Agamemnon, Achilles, and Hector, into various 
elemental combinations and physical agencies, and 
treated the adventures ascribed to them as natural 
facts concealed under the veil of allegory.’? 

Socrates declined this labour of explaining all fables 
allegorically as too arduous and unprofitable; yet he, 
as well as Plato, frequently pointed to what they called 
the hypénoia, the under-meaning, if I may say so, of 
the ancient myths. 

There is a passage in the eleventh book of Aristotle’s 
Metaphysics which has often been quoted? as show- 
ing the clear insight of that philosopher into the origin 
of mythology, though in reality it does not rise much 
above the narrow views of other Greek philosophers. 

This is what Aristotle writes :— 


It has been handed down by early and very ancient people, 
and left, in the form of myths, to those who came after, that 
these (the first principles of the world) are the gods, and that 
the divine embraces the whole of nature. The rest has been 
added mythically, in order to persuade the many, and in order 
to be used in support of laws and other interests. Thus they 
say that the gods have a human form, and that they are like to 
some of the other living beings, and other things consequent on 
this, and similar to what has been said. If one separated out 
of these fables, and took only that first point, that they believed 


' Syncellus, Chron. p. 149, ed. Paris. ‘Eppnvevovar 5é of “Avagaydperot 
Tovs pvOwders Oeovs, voy pey Tov Ala, Tiv Se ’AOnvay réxvnv. Grote, 
vol. i. p. 563. Ritter and Preller, Hist. Phil. § 48. Lobeck, Aglaoph. 
p. 156. Diog. Laert. ii. 11. 

* Bunsen, Gott in der Geschichte, vol, iii. p.5382. Ar. Met. xi. 8,19. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 499 


the first essences to be gods, one would think that it had been 
divinely said, and that while every art and every philosophy 
was probably invented ever so many times and lost again, these 
opinions had, like fragments of them, been preserved until now. 
So far only is the opinion of our fathers, and that received from 
our first ancestors, clear to us. 


The attempts at finding in mythology the remnants 
of ancient philosophy, have been carried on in different 
ways from the days of Socrates to our own time. Some 
writers thought they discovered astronomy, or other 
physical sciences, in the mythology of Greece: and in 
our own days the great work of Creuzer, ‘Symbolik 
und Mythologie der alten Volker’ (1819-21), was 
written with the one object of proving that Greek 
mythology was composed by priests, born or in- 
structed in the East, who wished to raise the semi- 
barbarous races of Greece to a higher civilisation and 
a purer knowledge of the Deity. There was, according 
to Creuzer and his school, a deep mysterious wisdom, 
and a monotheistic religion veiled under the symbol- 
ical language of mythology, which language, though 
unintelligible to the people, was understood by the 
priests, and may be interpreted even now by the 
thoughtful student of mythology. 


Historical Interpretations. 


The third theory on the origin of mythology I call 
the historical. It goes generally by the name of Hu- 
hemerus, though we find traces of it both before and 
after his time. Huhemerus was a contemporary of 
Alexander, and lived at the court of Cassander, in 
Macedonia, by whom he is said to have been sent out 

Kk 2 


500 CHAPTER X. 


on an exploring expedition. Whether he really ex- 
plored the Red Sea and the southern coasts of Asia 
we have no means of ascertaining. All we know is 
that, in a religious novel which he wrote, he re- 
presented himself as having sailed in that direction 
to a great distance, until he came to the island of 
Panchea. In that island he said that he discovered 
a number of inscriptions (dvaypadai, hence the title of 
his book, ‘Tepa  Avaypapn) containing an account of the 
principal gods of Greece, but representing them, not as 
gods, but as kings, heroes, and philosophers, who after 
their death had received divine honours among their 
fellow-men.' 

Though the book of Euhemerus itself and _ its 
translation by Ennius are both lost, and we know 
little either of its general spirit or of its treatment of 
individual deities, such was the sensation produced by 
it at the time, that Euhemerism has become the re- 
cognised title of that system of mythological inter- 
pretation which denies the existence of divine beings, 
and reduces the gods of old to the level of men. A 
distinction, however, must be made between the com- 
plete and systematic denial of all gods, which is as- 
cribed to Euhemerus, and the partial application of 
his principles which we find in many Greek writers. 
Thus Hecatzeus, a most orthodox Greek,? declares that 
Geryon of Erytheia was really a king of Epirus, rich 


* Quid ? qui aut fortes aut claros aut potentes viros tradunt post 
mortem ad deos pervenisse, eosque esse ipsos quos nos colere, precari, 
venerarique soleamus, nonne expertes sunt religionum omnium? Que 
ratio maxima tractata ab Kuhemero est, quam noster et interpretatus 
et secutus est preter ceteros Ennius.’—Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 42. 

* Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 526. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 501 


in cattle; and that Cerberus, the dog of Hades, was a 
certain serpent inhabiting a cavern on Cape Tzenarus.! 
Ephorus converted Tityos into a bandit, and the serpent 
Python * into a rather troublesome person, Python by 
name, alias Dracon, whom Apollo killed with his 
arrows. Herodotus tells us that the priests of Jupiter 
at Thebes informed him that two priestesses had been 
carried off from Thebes by Phenicians, and gold as 
slaves in Libya and in Greece, and that they had 
founded oracles there. He then continues that at 
Dodona he heard that two black doves had come 
from Thebes in Egypt, one going to Libya, the other 
to Dodona; that the dove at Dodona settled in an 
oak, and declared in a human voice that an oracle of 
Zeus should be founded on the spot ; that the people 
of Dodona took this as a divine message, and acted 
accordingly. Putting these two stories together, Hero- 
dotus concludes that both refer to the same fact, that 
two Egyptian priestesses had been carried off by 
Phenicians as slaves, had founded the sanctuaries of 
Zeus both at Dodona and in Libya; and he adds that, 
probably, they were called doves by the people of 
Dodona because they were strangers and seemed to 
twitter like birds, and, when they had learnt to speak 
better, it was said that the dove spoke with a human 
voice; but he adds, in a truly rationalistic spirit, how 
could a real dove have spoken with a human voice 2 
and he explains her black colour as meaning no more 
than that she came from Egypt. 


1 Strabo, ix. p. 422. Grote, H. G. i. p. 552. 
* Possibly connected with the Vedic Ahir Budhnya. See Benfey, 
Gittinger Gel. Anz., 1871, p. 322. 


502 CHAPTER X. 


Now it is important to remark that Herodotus, 
though he was at Dodona, tells us nothing of any 
doves being kept there in his time, nor of priestesses 
called Peleiades. All this seems to belong to a later 
time. Strabo (Fragm. lib. vii. 1, 2) knew of doves used 
for the purposes of divination at Dodona. But he too, 
in a rationalising spirit, remarks that possibly the 
priestesses there prophesied according to the peculiar 
flight of doves. And he gives a still better explanation 
by saying that, in the language of the Molossians and 
Thesprotians, old women were called pelzae, old men 
peliot; and that, therefore, the famous Pelezades at 
Dodona may have been simply those old women offi- - 
ciating at the oracle. Pausanias, in the 2nd century, 
mentions the doves (Peleiae) and the oracles from the 
oak at Dodona (vii. 21, 2); and in x. 12, 10 he, too, 
takes the Peleiae as priestesses at Dodona, divinely 
inspired, yet not called Szbyllw. They were the first 
among women, he says, who sang 


i. ki » 5 A 

Zevs nv, Zevs eott, Zevs €ooera, @ peydde Zed" 
Co \ oan: \ , , cr 

Ta kaprovs avier, dud kAnere parépa yatay. 


Similar explanations become more frequent in later 
Greek historians who, unable to admit anything super- 
natural or miraculous as historical fact, strip the 
ancient legends of all that renders them incredible, . 
and then treat them as narratives of real events, and 
not as fiction.’ With them, AZolus, the god of the 
winds, became an ancient mariner skilled in predict- 
ing weather; the Cyclopes were a race of savages 


1 Grote, i554. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 503 


inhabiting Sicily; the Centaurs were horsemen; Atlas 
was a great astronomer, and Scylla a fast-sailing fili- 
buster. This system, too, like the former, maintained 
itself almost to the present day. The early Christian 
controversialists, St. Augustine, Lactantius, Arnobius, 
availed themselves of this argument in their attacks 
on the religious belief of the Greeks and Romans, 
taunting them with worshipping gods that were no 
gods, but known and admitted to have been mere 
deified mortals. In their attacks on the religion of 
the German nations, the Roman missionaries recurred 
to the same argument. One of them told the Angli 
in England that Woden, whom they believed to 
be the principal and the best of their gods, from 
whom they derived their origin, and to whom they 
had consecrated the fourth day in the week, had been 
a mortal, a king of the Saxons, from whom many 
tribes claim to be descended. When his body had 
been reduced to dust, his soul was buried in hell, and 
suffers eternal fire’ In many of our handbooks of 
mythology and history, we still find traces of this 
system. Jupiter is still spoken of as a ruler of Crete, 
Hercules as a successful general or knight-errant, 
Priam as an eastern king, and Achilles, the son of 
Jupiter and Thetis, as a valiant champion in the siege 
of Troy. The siege of Troy still retains its place in the 
minds of many as an historical fact, though resting 
on no better authority than the carrying off of Helena 
by Theseus and her recovery by the Dioskuri, the siege 
of Olympus by the Titans, or the taking of Jerusalem 


1 Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 338; Legend. Nova, fol. 210 b. 


—6604 CHAPTER X. 


by Charlemagne, described in the chivalrous romances! 
of the Middle Ages. 

In later times the same theory was revived, though 
not for such practical purposes, and it became during 
the last century the favourite theory with philoso- 
phical historians, particularly in France. The com- 
prehensive work of the Abbé Banier, ‘The Mythology 
and Fables of Antiquity, explained from History,’ 
secured to this school a temporary ascendancy in 
France; and in England, too, his work, translated 
into English, was quoted as an authority. His de- 
sign was, as he says,’ ‘to prove that, notwithstanding 
all the ornaments which accompany fables, it is no 
difficult matter to see that they contain a part of the 
history of primitive times.’ It is useful to read these 
books, written only about a hundred years ago, if it 
were only as a warning against a too confident spirit 
in working out theories which now seem so incon- 
trovertible, and which a hundred years hence may be 
equally antiquated. 


‘Shall we believe,’ says the Abbé Banier—and no doubt he 
thought his argument unanswerable— shall we believe in good 
earnest that Alexander would have held Homer in such esteem, 
had he looked upon him only as a mere relater of fables? and 
would he have envied the happy lot of Achilles in having such a 


* Grote, i. 636. ‘The series of articles by M. Fauriel, published in 
the Revue des deux Mondes, vol. xiii, are full of instruction respecting 
the origin, tenor, and influence of the romances of chivalry. Though 
the name of Charlemagne appears, the romancers are quite unable to 
distinguish him from Charles Martel, or from Charles the Bald (pp. 537- 
39). ‘They ascribe to him an expedition to the Holy Land, in which he 
conquered Jerusalem from the Saracens,’ &c. 

* The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, explained from History, 
by the Abbé Banier. London, 1739, in six vols. Vol. i. Pp. Es 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 505 


one to sing his praises ?!... When Cicero is enumerating the 
sages, does he not bring in Nestor and Ulysses ?—would he have 
given mere phantoms a place among them? Are we not taught 
by Cicero (Tusc. Quest. 1.5) that what gave occasion to feign 
that one god supported the heavens on his shoulders, and that 
the other was chained to Mount Caucasus, was their indefatig- 
able application to contemplate the heavenly bodies? I might 
bring in here the authority of most of the ancients: I might 
produce that of the primitive Fathers of the Church, Arnobius, 
Lactantius, and several others, who looked upon fables to be 
founded on true histories; and I might finish this list with the 
names of the most illustrious of our moderns, who have traced 
out in ancient fictions so many remains of the traditions of the 
primitive ages.’ 


How like in tone to some incontrovertible argu- 
ments used in our own days! And again:? 


‘I shall make it appear that Minotaur with Pasiphaé, and 
the rest of that fable, contain nothing but an intrigue of the 
Queen of Crete with a captain named Taurus, and the artifice of 
Dedalus, only a sly confidant. Atlas bearing heaven upon his 
shoulders was a king that studied astronomy with a globe in his 
hand. The golden apples of the delightful garden of the 
Hesperides, and their dragon, were oranges watched by mastiff 
dogs.’ 


Biblical Interpretations. 


As belonging in spirit to the same school, we have 
still to mention those scholars who looked to Greek 
mythology for traces, not of profane, but of sacred 
personages, and who, like Bochart, imagined they 
could recognise in Saturn the features of Noah, and 
in his three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, the 
three sons of Noah, Ham, Japhet, and Shem.? G. J. 


gay Ole iaps 215 ARV olei pa2g 
° Geographia Sacra, lib. i.: ‘“‘Noam esse Saturnum tam multa 


506 CHAPTER X. 


Vossius, in his learned work, ‘De Theologia Gentili et 
Physiologia Christiana, sive De Origine et Progressu 
Idolatrie, } identified Saturn with Adam or with 
Noah, Janus and Prometheus with Noah again, Pluto 
with Japhet or Ham, Neptune with Japhet, Minerva 
with Naamah, the sister of Tubal Cain, Vuleanus with 
Tubal Cain, Typhon with Og, king of Bashan, &e. 
Gerardus Croesus, in his ‘ Homerus Ebrzeus, maintains 
that the Odyssey gives the history of the patriarchs, 
the emigration of Lot from Sodom, and the death of 
Moses, while the Iliad tells the conquest and destruc- 
tion of Jericho. AHwet, in his ‘Demonstratio EHvan- 
gelica, * went still further. His object was to prove 
the genuineness of the books of the Old Testament by 
showing that nearly the whole theology of the heathen 
nations was borrowed from Moses. Moses himself 
is represented by him as having assumed the most 
incongruous characters in the traditions of the Gen- 
tiles; and not only ancient lawgivers like Zoroaster 
and Orpheus, but gods like Apollo, Vulean, and Faunus, 
are traced back by the learned and pious bishop to the 
same historical prototype. And as Moses was the 
prototype of the Gentile gods, his sister Miriam or his 


docent ut vix sit dubitandi locus.’ Ut Noam esse Saturnum multis 
argumentis constitit, sic tres Noe filios cum Saturni tribus filiis confe- 
renti, Hamum vel Chamum esse Jovem probabunt he rationes.—J aphet 
idem qui Neptunus. Semum Plutonis nomine detruserunt in inferos.— 
Lib.i.c.2. Jam si libet etiam ad nepotes descendere ; in familia Hami 
sive Jovis Hammonis, Put est Apollo Pythius ; Chanaan idem qui Mer- © 
curius.—Quis non videt Nimrodum esse Bacchum? Bacchus enim idem 
qui bar-chus, i. e. Chusi filius. Videtur et Magog esse Prometheus.’ 

+ Amsterdami, 1668, pp. 71, 78, 77, 97: ‘Og est iste qui a Grecis 
dicitur Tupav,’ &c. 

2 Parisiis, 1677. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 507 


wife Zippora were supposed to have been the models 
of all their goddesses.' 


Mr. Gladstone’s Theory. 


You are aware that Mr. Gladstone, in his interest- 
ing and important work on Homer, takes a similar 
view, and tries to discover in parts of the Greek 
mythology a dimmed image of the sacred traditions 
of the Jews; not so dimmed, however, as to prevent 
us from recognising, as he thinks, in Jupiter, and espe- 
cially in Apollo and Minerva, a marked resemblance 
to those traditions.? In the last number of one of the 


1 ¢Caput tertium: I. Universa propemodum Ethnicorum Theologia 
ex Mose, Mosisve actis aut scriptis manavit. I. Velut illa Phonicum. 
Tautus idem ac Moses. I. Adonis idem ac Moses. iv. Thammus 
Ezechielis idem ac Moses. vV. THoAuvwyupos fuit Moses. vi. Marnas 
Gazensium Deus idem ac Moses.—Caput quartum : vu. Vulcanus idem 
ac Moses. Ix. Typhon idem ac Moses,—Caput quintum: 1. Zoroas- 
tres idem ac Moses.—Caput octavum: 111. Apollo idem ac Moses. Iv. 
Pan idem ac Moses. v. Priapus idem ac Moses, &. &c.—p. 121. 
Cum demonstratum sit Greecanicos Deos, in ipsa Mosis persona larvata, 
et ascititio habitu contecta provenisse, nunc probare agegredior ex Mosis 
scriptionibus, verbis, doctrina, et institutis, aliquos etiam Grecorum 
eorundem Deos, ac bonam Mythologiz ipsorum partem manasse.’ 

2 The following extract from a letter addressed to me by Mr. Glad- 
stone, and printed here with his permission, will place his opinions on 
the relation of the Homeric Mythology to the sacred traditions of the 
Jewish race in a clearer and more definite light :— 


‘It is not, I assure you, true, that I have seen in the Hellenic Mytho- 
logy a dimmed image of the history of the Jews ; or that Zeus, Apollo, 
and Athene are in my view representations of the Three Persons of the 
Trinity. J go much further than this, and venture to say that, although 
I fear there may be deeper points of difference between us than such as 
appear on the surface of your work, yet I would accept the whole of 
your theory respecting the origin of the personages of the Hellenic my- 
thology in perfect consistency with what I have myself intended, and 
very crudely and imperfectly laboured to express. I do not mean to say 
that I accept in full the creed of the Dawn; but then, speaking gener- 


508 CHAPTER X. 


best edited quarterlies, in the ‘Home and F oreign 
Review, a Roman Catholic organ, Mr. F. A. Paley, the 


ally, I feel myself wholly incompetent to pass any real judgment upon 
the evidence you adduce in its favour. Let me venture, however, to 
express my dissent from your statements about Aphrodite. I do not 
mean as to the origin of the name, on which I cannot presume to pro- 
nounce, or as to the functions with which it may have been originally 
associated. But I think you draw a picture of her as a personage in 
the earliest known, that is the Homeric, stage of the Hellenic mythology. 
Now I will not deny that the epithet “golden ” may have become her 
property by inheritance from some prior tradition which may have 
associated her with the Dawn: there are grounds which would lead me 
to think it not improbable. But this would of itself be a poor founda- 
tion on which to build a theory; and, as far as the Homeric mythology 
is concerned, I am not aware of any other. But what I am most struck 
with is your appearing to hold that the degradation of her idea and 
worship came in at a later period. Now TI hold that throughout Homer, 
from beginning to end, this degradation is not to be mistaken by any 
careful observer, who goes straight to his author, and does not allow 
himself, as is so common, to interpret Homeric personages through 
Virgilian representations. As to the sea-birth, there is not in Homer 
a vestige of it. It appears curiously in Pausanias ; ina temple of Posei- 
don she is held up by Thalassa apparently as a child of the sea-god ; but 
I think he mentions that the work is a late work, or a work of his own 
time.* I do not, pray observe, enter into the application to her of your 
theory; but I think you cannot sustain it from early, I mean the 
earliest, Greek evidence. When we come down to the traditions of 
Aphrodite Ourania, distinct from the Pandemos and the A postrophia, I 
admit you may draw certain favourable presumptions from them. 

‘ Now, what I should like to do, if I were able, would be to convey 
to your mind a clear conception of the standing-point from which I 
regard the Homeric, or, as I venture to call it, the Olympian mythology. 
For you would find that it is one of deep and fruitful interest, while it 
lies somewhat off the path of your great undertaking. In conversation 
I should have more hope of doing it than in a letter. I shall fail, and 
fail by my own fault, not by yours. But I will put down a few words; 
and not one among them which I should not endeavour to support by 
evidence if occasion served. 

‘I find Homer, then, as respects the department of mythology, de- 
serving of the testimony which Herodotus gave him, and leaving but 
avery small share in the partnership to Hesiod, or to the author of the 


* See page 474, note}. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 509 


well-known editor of ‘Euripides,’ advocates the same 
sacred Euhemerism. ‘Atlas, he writes, ‘symbolises 


Theogony, whoever he may be, and who was not properly a maker, but 
a very useful reporter, of mythological tradition as it came into his 
hand. He surely was not a man of the power required to manipulate. 
and modify such materials. But Homer, with the vast mechanism of 
the Trojan war (be that Dawn too, or be it not) in his hands, and in 
such hands, and almost compelled to employ an elaborate and varied 
theurgy, and obtaining the key to the heart and mind of his people, and 
becoming by his genius in a great degree the maker of that Hellenic 
nation which has done so much to make us all—was in a position of 
advantage without parallel for giving form to the religious traditions of 
his country. Now let us suppose it to be true, and I admit it so appears, 
that the materials out of which the Hellenic mythology grew or was 
constructed, were in great part supplied by some system or systems of 
Nature worship. But surely it cannot be denied that, in the hands of 
the Hellenic race (chiefly and before all I should say in the hands of 
Homer), these materials were moulded, almost indeed coerced, into a 
new shape; they were brought to submit to the dominion of a new 
spirit. From some quarter or other, the anthropomorphic force came 
in; and this force either subordinated or repelled all others; built up 
the system in complete subserviency to itself; left the traditions of the 
old cultus of Nature to take refuge in the recesses of Arcadia, or (per- 
haps) to veil themselves in the mysteries of Eleusis, but forbade them 
utterly the use of the Achaian or the Hellenic stamp ; humanised in a 
marvellous manner, by reflection, the Olympian life; contaminated it 
indeed, but did even this in a manner intensely human; and then, 
having everywhere saturated the divine idea with the human element, 
applied this idea, as a principle, to life in a multitude of forms: as, for 
example, in concentrating the idea of art upon the human frame; in the 
lofty and singularly comprehensive idea of human nature ; in a profound 
self-respect and a great value for human life. Great as was the change 
imposed on the crude materials supplied by Egypt (if they were so sup- 
plied) in order that they might issue in the perfect forms of Hellenic 
art, it was no greater, as it seems to me, than the change wrought by 
masterly workmanship, in obedience to the wants and tendencies of the 
national mind, upon the mythological materials supplied from so many 
ethnic sources, before they became the Olympian system. 

‘ Now comes the question, What was the source of this anthropomor- 
phicinfluence? I conclude, or rather I assume, that the worker, whether 
Homer, or his race, or both, did not in this point, more than in any 
other, work without materials. If you are right, or if the competing 
systems to which you refer are right, you must I think feel that, in 


510 CHAPTER X. 


the endurance of labour. He is placed by Hesiod 
close to the garden of the Hesperides, and it is im- 


order to effect the transition from the stage you describe to a religion 
provided with the apparatus of the Olympian mythology, something is 
wanting which must be sought elsewhere. From whence did it come; 
and come, too, endowed with a power so subtle and so commanding ? 

‘ Now, here I take my stand upon Homer as a great and comprehen- 
sive depository of evidence, which is only now beginning to be worked 
upon, and which in the main is scarcely less entitled to be reasoned 
from for the purposes in view, though of course after a somewhat differ- 
ent manner than is the evidence afforded by geological research with 
reference to its proper sphere. 

‘When I come to examine these poems, I find the anthropomorphic 
force at work, and in its fullest vigour. Moreover, I find it developed 
in certain cases with an astonishing purity and elevation. I find that 
the mythological system, though it has effectually banished or subdued 
the elements not anthropomorphic, yet is morally as far as possible from 
being homogeneous ; and that the differences of structure seem to point 
to differences of origin. But, you will say, I brought to Homer the de- 
termination to find all this. Here, however, we are upon a matter of 
fact ; and I am ashamed to say that, when I began the systematic study 
of Homer about ten years ago, I not only had no vision or even inkling 
of a theory about the Hellenic mythology; but I had never before 
learned to feel an interest in it; and everything that I have since said 
or written has come to me, in the first instance, by suggestion from the 
text of Homer itself, though it has been also supported from other 
quarters, and I think most of all from the truthful archeology of 
Pausanias. 

‘ Of course I do not now in anything attempt to prove, but I assert 
that the text of Homer contains a vast mass of what may be called 
evidence at first hand, bearing upon the question how and from whence 
the anthropomorphic element came into the Hellenic religion with the 
deep vital energy that inspired it, and that the conclusion, to which the 
evidence points, is as follows :—I suppose it is not denied that there 
were in the world, at a very early period as compared with the Hellenic 
civilisation, certain Semitic traditions, which for a large part of man- 
kind are also Christian beliefs, but which may here be rudely and con- 
veniently described as Messianic ideas. They related to the appearance 
ata future time of a Deliverer, and the establishment in Him of an 
identifying relation between the divine and the human nature; and to 
the Divine Word or Wisdom, as concerned in the order and government 
of the world; as well as to other matters which need not here be 
further stated. Ido not now speak of these traditions as matter of 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. BBE 


possible to doubt that here we have a tradition of the 
garden of Eden, the golden apples guarded by a 
dragon being the apple which the serpent tempted 


religious obligation, or even interest: I speak of them merely as facts. 
And [ affirm, taking my stand upon the evidence supplied by the poems 
especially, that if these traditions had filtered through the intermediate 
space, by whatever channel, into the sphere of the earliest Hellenic life, 
they supply us with what was wanting towards a complete and rational 
genesis of the Homeric or Olympian mythology ; and that, without this 
hypothesis, that wonderful formation must remain utterly inexplicable. 
I therefore really know nothing about what you term sacred euhemerism. 
The question is one not of mere theory or presupposition, but of testi- 
mony ; and of hypothesis only called in to meet and answer the demands 
of fact. 

‘If I am asked more specifically as to the mode of operation by which 
the result was accomplished, I would roughly answer thus :—Homer, 
whom I take partly for the maker and partly for the symbol of his 
people, sits in his mighty workshop, like the young Hephaistos in the 
ocean cave, making into toy-bracelets and the like the materials with 
which he was supplied by (I think) the nymph Eurunomé. The mate- 
rials brought to Homer are the mythological traditions of the various 
races and nations and families that contributed to the formation of the 
composite Hellenic stock. He fits together names and attributes, bound 
by no severe atiterior law, and able to follow the bent of his own and 
his nation’s genius. What he cannot use (like Nereus, a pure elemental 
god), he casts aside. What he can, like Zeus, or suppose we call him 
Dyaus, he modifies and clothes, so as to satisfy the main idea. On the 
whole, the Nature Powers, passing through the crucible of his mind, are 
at once compressed and spiritualised, so that the human element, both 
of form and character, becomes dominant, and physical functions swell 
into the class of attributes more or less ab extra. Now I may be met 
with an outcry: What, is it to be supposed that any man or people ever 
so dealt with its religion? To which I answer by seeking shelter from 
those admirable and delightful pages, in which you point out the dis- 
tinction between the mythological system of Greece and the religion of 
its people individually. Secondly, I am describing roughly and briefly 
a process long, subtle, in great part unconscious. Thomas Aquinas in 
a certain sense made a theology. Much more largely was Homer, and 
were the Hellenes, makers. The Theomachy, the Theo-andro-machies, 
and much else in the poems, show us not only that the severance 
between God and good had begun, but that it had made alarming 
progress,’ 


512 CHAPTER X. 


Eve to gather, or the garden kept by an angel with 
a flaming sword.’ 4 

Though it was felt by all unprejudiced scholars that 
none of these systems of interpretation was in the 
least satisfactory, yet it seemed impossible to suggest 
any better solution of the problem ; and though at the 
present moment few, I believe, could be found who 
adopt any of these systems exclusively—who hold 
that the whole of Greek mythology was invented for 
the sake of inculcating moral precepts, or of pro- 
mulgating physical or metaphysical doctrines, or of 
relating facts of ancient history, and even of sacred 
history, many have acquiesced in a kind of com- 
promise, admitting that some parts of mythology 
might have a moral, others a physical, others an 
historical character, but that there remained a oreat 
body of fables, which yielded to no tests whatever. 
The riddle of the Sphinx of Mythology remained 
unsolved. 


Philological Interpretation. 


The first impulse to a new consideration of the 
mythological problem came from the study of com- 
parative philology. Through the discovery of the 
ancient language of India, the classical Sanskrit, 
which was due to the labours of Wilkins,? Sir W. 
Jones, and Colebrooke, some eighty years ago; and 
_through the discovery of the intimate relationship 

1 Home and Foreign Review, No. 7, p. 111, 1864: ‘The Cyclopes 
were probably a race of pastoral and metal-working people from the 
East, characterised by their rounder faces, whence arose the story of 


their one eye. —F.. A. P. 
> Bhagavadgita, ed. Wilkins, 1785. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 513 


between that language and the languages of the prin- 
cipal races of Europe, due to the genius of Schlegel, 
Humboldt, Bopp, and others, a complete revolution 
took place in the views commonly entertained of the 
ancient history of the world. I have no time to give 
a full account of these researches; but I may state it 
as a fact, suspected, I suppose, by no one before, and 
doubted by no one after it was enunciated, that the 
languages spoken by the Brahmans of India, by the 
followers of Zoroaster and the subjects of Darius in 
Persia; by the Greeks, by the Romans; by Celtic, 
Teutonic, and Slavonic races, were all mere varieties 
of one common type—stood, in fact, to each other in 
the same relation as French, Italian, Spanish, and 
Portuguese stand to each other as modern dialects of 
Latin. This was, indeed, ‘the discovery of a new 
world,’ or, if you like, the recovery of an old world. 
All the landmarks of what was called the ancient 
history of the human race had to be shifted, and it 
had to be explained, in some way or other, how all 
these languages, separated from each other by thou- 
sands of miles and thousands of years, could have 
originally started from one common centre. 

On this,t however, I cannot dwell now; and I must 
proceed at once to state how, after some time, it was 
discovered that not only the radical elements of all 
these languages which are called Aryan or Indo- 
Kuropean—not only the numerals, pronouns, prepo- 
sitions, and grammatical terminations—not only their 
household words, such as father, mother, brother, 


* Biographies of Words and Home of the Aryas, p. 80. 
Il. Ll 


514 CHAPTER X. 


daughter, husband, brother-in-law, cow, dog, horse, 
cattle, tree, ox, yoke, axle, earth, sky, water, stars, 
and many hundreds more, were identically the same, 
but that each possessed the elements of a mytholo- 
gical phraseology, displaying the palpable traces of 


a common origin. 


Comparative Mythology. 


What followed from this for the Science of Mytho- 
logy? Exactly the same as what followed for the 
Science of Language from the discovery that Sanskrit, 
Greek, Latin, German, Celtic, and Slavonic had all 
one and the same origin. Before that discovery was 
made, it was allowable to treat each language by 
itself, and any etymological explanation that was in 
accordance with the laws of each particular language 
might have been considered satisfactory. If Plato 
derived theds, the Greek word for god, from the Greek 
verb théevn, to run, because the first gods were the 
sun and moon, always running through the sky ;! or 
if Herodotus? derived the same word from tithénai, 
to set, because the gods set everything in order, we 
can find no fault with either. But if we once admit, in 
spite of phonetic difficulties, that the same word exists 
in Sanskrit and Latin, as deva and deus,® we cannot 
accept any etymology for the Greek word that is not 


1 Plat. Craé. 397 C. 2 Her, ii. 52. 

* On the relation of deva and deus to 6eds, see Ascoli, Frammenti 
Linguwistict, iii., and Schweizer-Siedler, in Kuhn’s Zettschrift, xvii. 
p. 142. M.M., Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iv. p. 239. On 
the anomalies of form and flexion due to the sacredness of names, see 
Diez, Lexicon Etymologicum, p. 155; Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, i2. 
p. 1071; Diefenbach, Gothisches Worterbuch, ii, p. 416. 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE! GREEKS. 515 


applicable to the corresponding terms in Sanskrit and 
Latin. If we knew French only, we might derive the 
French feu, fire, from the German Feuer. But if we 
see that the same word exists in Italian as fwoco, in 
Spanish as fuego, it is clear that we must look for an 
etymology applicable to all three, which we find in the 
Latin focus, and not in the German Feuer. Even so 
thoughtful a scholar as Grimm does not seem to have 
perceived the absolute stringency of this rule. Before 
it was known that there existed in Sanskrit, Greek, 
Latin, and Slavonic, the same word for name, identical 
with the Gothic namé (gen. namins), it would have 
been allowable to derive the German word from a 
German root. Thus Grimm (Grammatik, ii. 80) de- 
rived the German Name from the verb nehmen, to 
take. This would have been a perfectly legitimate 
etymology. But when it became evident that the 
Sanskrit naman stood for gniman, just as nomen, for 
gnomen (cognomen, ignominia), and was derived from 
a verb gna, to know, it became impossible to retain 
the derivation of Name from nehmen, and at the same 
time to admit that of ndman from gna.' Each word 
can have but one etymology, as each living being can 
have but one mother. 

Let us apply this to the mythological phraseology 
of the Aryan nations. If we had to explain the names 
and fables of the Greek gods only, an explanation 
such as that which derives the name of Zevés from the 
verb zén, to live, would be by no means contemptible. 


1 Grimm, Greschichte der Deutschen Sprache, p. 153. Other words 
derived from gna, are notus, nobilis, gnarus, ignarus, ignoro, narrare 
(gnarigare), gnomon, I ken, I know, uncouth, &c. 


si. 1h: 


516. CHAPTER X. 


But if we find that Zeus in Greek is the same word as 
Dyaus in Sanskrit, Jw in Jupiter, and Tu in Tues- 
day, we perceive that no etymology would be satis- 
factory that did not explain all these words together. 
Hence it follows, that in order to understand the 
origin and meaning of the names of the Greek gods, 
and to enter into the original intention of the fables 
told of each of them, we must not confine our view 
within the Greek horizon, but must take into account 
the collateral evidence supplied by Latin, German, 
Sanskrit, and Zend mythology. The key that is to 
open one must open all; otherwise it cannot be the 
right key. 

Strong objections have been raised against this line 
of reasoning by classical scholars; and even those 
who have surrendered Greek etymology as useless 
without the aid of Sanskrit, protest against this 
desecration of the Greek Pantheon, and against any 
attempt at deriving the gods and fables of Homer 
and Hesiod from the monstrous idols of the Brah- 
mans. I believe this is mainly owing to a misunder- 
standing. No sound scholar would ever think of 
deriving any Greek or Latin word from Sanskrit. 
Sanskrit is not the mother of Greek and Latin, as 
Latin is of French and Italian. Sanskrit, Greek, 
and Latin are sisters, varieties of one and the same 
type. They all point to some earlier stage when 
they were less different from each other than they 
now are; but no more. All we can say in favour of 
Sanskrit is, that it is the eldest sister; that it has 
retained many words and forms less changed and 
corrupted than Greek and Latin. The more primi- 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 517 


tive character and transparent structure of Sanskrit 
have naturally endeared it to the student of language, 
but they have not blinded him to the fact, that on 
many points Greek and Latin—nay, Gothic and 
Celtic—have preserved primitive features which 
Sanskrit has lost. Greek is co-ordinate with, not 
sub-ordinate to, Sanskrit; and the only distine- 
tion which Sanskrit is entitled to claim is that 
which Austria used to claim in the German Con- 
federation—to be the first AONE equals, primus 
inter pares. 

There is, however, another reason which has made 
any comparison of Greek and Hindu gods more par- 
ticularly distasteful to classical scholars. At the very 
beginning of Sanskrit philology attempts were made 
by no less a person than Sir W. Jones! at identifying 
the deities of the modern Hindu mythology with those 
of Homer. This was done in the most arbitrary 
manner, and has brought any attempt of the same 
kind into deserved disrepute among sober critics. 
Sir W. Jones is not responsible, indeed, for such 
comparisons as Cupid and Dipuc (dtpaka); but to 
compare, as he does, modern Hindu gods, such as 
Vishnu, Siva, or Krishna, with the gods of 
Homer, was indeed like comparing modern Hindu- 

* Sir W. Jones, On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India. (Works, 
vol. i. p. 229.) He compares Janus with Ganesa, Saturn with Manu 
Satyavrata, nay, with Noah; Ceres with Sri, Jupiter with Divas- 
pati and with Siva (7pidpOadpos =trilokana), Bacchus with Bagisa, 
Juno with Parvati, Mars with Skanda, nay, with the Secander of 
Persia, Minerva At Durga and Sarasvati, Osiris and Isis with 
ieee and Isi, Dionysos ait Rama, Apollo with Krishna, Vulcan 


with Pavaka and Visvakarman, Mercury with Narada, Hekate 
with Kali. . 


518 CHAPTER X. 


stani with ancient Greek. Trace Hindustani back 
to Sanskrit, and it will be possible then to compare 
it with Greek and Latin; but not otherwise. The 
same in mythology. Trace the modern system of 
Hindu mythology back to its earliest form, and 
there will then be some reasonable hope of dis- 
covering a family likeness between the sacred names 
worshipped by the Aryans of India and the Aryans 
of Greece. ; 


The Rigveda. 


This was impossible at the time of Sir Wiliam 
Jones ; it is even now but partially possible. Though 
Sanskrit has now been studied for three generations, 
the most ancient work of Sanskrit literature, the 
Rigveda, is still a book with seven seals. The wish 
expressed by Otfried Muller in 1825, in his Prolego- 
mena to a Scientific Mythology, ‘Oh that we had an 
intelligible translation of the Veda!’ is stall unful- 
filled ; and though of late years nearly all Sanskrit 
scholars have devoted their energies to the elucida- 
tion of Vedic literature, many years are still required 
before Otfried Miiller’s desire can be realised. ‘This is 
true even in 1890. 

Now Sanskrit literature without the Veda is like 
Greek literature without Homer, like Jewish litera- 
ture without the Bible, hke Mohammedan literature 
without the Koran; and you will easily understand 
how, if we do not know the most ancient form of 
Hindu religion and mythology, it is premature to 
attempt any comparison between the gods of India 
and the gods of any other country. What was 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 519 


wanted as the only safe foundation, not only of 
Sanskrit literature, but of Comparative Mythology— 
nay, of Comparative Philology—was an edition of the 
most ancient document of Indian literature, Indian 
religion, Indian language—an edition of the Rig- 
veda. The ten books of the Rigveda have now 
been published in the original, together with an 
ample Indian commentary, by Sayana, 1849-75. 
But, after the text and commentary of the Rigveda 
are published, there still remains the grave task of 
translating, or, I should rather say, deciphering, these 
ancient hymus. ! 

There are indeed several translations of the Rig- 
veda. The first was published in French, by Lang- 
lois, in 1848-59. It reads very well, but it is in all 
difficult passages mere guess-work, and without any 
authority. The second, by the late Professor Wilson, 
1850-66, is a reproduction—though not always a 
quite faithful reproduction—of the sense assigned to 
these ancient hymns by Sayana. It can claim to be 
authoritative so far as the native scholastic interpreta- 
tion of the Veda is concerned. But that inter- 
pretation of Indian theologians and _ philosophers 
shows us quite as often how the Veda was mis- 
understood by later commentators as how it was 
understood by the ancient poets themselves. Then 
followed a metrical German translation, by Grass- 
mann, 1876-77, very creditable for the then state of 
scholarship, very readable, but again very free and 


1 T have since published the first volume of my translation of the 
Rigveda: Rigveda-Sanhité, ‘The Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans,’ 
translated and explained. London: (Triibner & Co.) 1869. 


520 CHAPTER xX, 


very vague in all difficult passages. The first who 
grappled seriously with the difficulties that have to 
be met in translating the Rigveda was Ludwig. His 
translation appeared in 1876, and was followed by a 
learned introduction in 1878, and by a commentary 
in 1881 and 1888. Much as this translation has been 
slighted, it is as yet the only scholarlike rendering of 
the Vedic hymns, and if it is often unintelligible, it is 
at all events honest. 

There is only one process by which a real trans- 
lation of the Veda may be achieved. We must 
decipher it as we decipher an inscription. We must 
collect all the passages in which the same word 
occurs—this I have done in my Index Verborum— 
and we must then try to discover a meaning that will 
fit all the passages in which the same word occurs. 
This is what I attempted to do in the volume which 
I published in 1869. It was a specimen of what I 
thought and still think the only scientific method. It 
contains twelve hymns only, and it was impossible to 
continue the work on that scale. Whether I shall be 
able to continue it at my time of life is very doubt- 
ful, but whoever means to produce a really satisfactory 
translation will have to follow my method. There 
are many more or less successful translations to be 
found in the works of Muir, Roth, Kaegi, Geldner, and 
in my own works, but even where these translations are 
evidently correct, they cannot claim permanent au- 
thority unless the rendering of every difficult word is 
Justified by a comparison of all parallel passages, 

This process of deciphering is a slow one; yet, 
through the combined labours of various scholars, 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 521 


some progress has been made, and some insight has 
been gained into the mythological phraseology of the 
Vedic Rishis. One thing we can clearly see, that 
the same position which Sanskrit, as the most primi- 
tive, most transparent of the Aryan dialects, holds 
in the Science of Language, the Veda and its most 
primitive, most transparent system of religion will 
hold in the Science of Mythology and Religion. In 
the hymns of the Rigveda we still have the last 
chapter of the real Theogony of the Aryan races. 
We just catch a glimpse, behind the scenes, of the 
agencies which were at work in producing that 
magnificent stage-effect witnessed in the drama of the 
Olympian gods. There, in the Veda, the Sphinx of 
Mythology still utters a few words to betray her own 
secret, and shows us that it is man, that it is human 
thought and human language combined, which natur- 
ally and inevitably produced that strange conglo- 
merate of ancient fable which has perplexed all 
rational thinkers, from the days of Xenophanes to our 
own time. 

I shall try to make my meaning clearer. You will 
see that a great point is gained in comparative my- 
thology if we succeed in discovering the original 
meaning of the names of the gods. If we knew, for 
instance, what Athene, or Here, or Apollo meant at 
first, we should have something firm to stand on or 
to start from, and be able to follow more securely the 
later development of these names. We know, for 
instance, that Selene in Greek means moon, and know- 
ing this, we at once understand the myths that she is 
the sister of //elios, for helios means sun; that she is 


522 CHAPTER X. 


the sister of Hos, for eos means dawn ;—and if another 
poet calls her the sister of Huryphaéssa, we are not 
much perplexed, for ewryphaéssa, meaning wide- 
shining, can only be another name for the dawn. If she 
is represented with two horns, we at once remember 
the two horns of the moon; and if she is said to have 
become the mother of Hse by Zeus, we again perceive 
that erse means dew, and that to call Erse the daughter 
of Zeus and Selene was no more than if we, in our 
more matter-of-fact language, say that there is dew 
after a moonlight night. 

Now one great advantage in the Veda is, that 
many of the names of the gods are still intelligible ; 
are used, in fact, not only as proper names, but like- 
wise as appellative nouns. Agni, one of their prin- 
cipal gods, means clearly fire ; it is the same word as 
the Latin cgnis. Hence we have a right to explain 
his other names, and all that is told of him, as origin- 
ally meant for fire. Vayu or Vata means clearly 
wind, Marut means storm, Parganya rain, Savi- 
tar the sun, Ushas, as well as its synonyms, Ur- 
vasi, Ahana, Saranyt, means dawn; Prethivi, 
earth; Dyava-prithivi, heaven and earth. Other 
divine names in the Veda which are no longer used 
as appellatives, become easily intelligible, because 
they are used as synonyms of more intelligible names 
(such as urvasi for ushas), or because they receive 
light from other languages, such as Varuna, clearly 
the same word as the Greek ourands, and meaning 
originally the sky. 

Another advantage which the Veda offers is this, 
that in its numerous hymns we can still watch the 


MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS. 523 


gradual growth of the gods, the slow transition of 
appellatives into proper names, the first tentative 
steps towards personification. The Vedic Pantheon 
is held together by the loosest ties of family relation- 
ship ; nor is there as yet any settled supremacy like 
that of Zeus among the gods of Homer. Every god 
is conceived as supreme, or at least as inferior to no 
other god, at the time that he is praised or invoked 
by the Vedic poets; and the feeling that the various 
deities are but different names, different conceptions 
of that Incomprehensible Being which no thought can 
reach, and no language can express, ig not yet quite 
extinct in the minds of some of the more thoughtful 
among the Vedic bards. 


CHAPTER XT. 


JUPITER. 


Religion and Mythology. 


HERE are few mistakes so widely spread and so 
firmly established as that which makes us con- 
found the religion and the mythology of the ancient 
nations of the world. How mythology arises, neces- 
sarily and naturally, I have tried to explain; and we 
saw that, as an affection or disorder of language, 
mythology may infect every part of the intellectual 
lite of man. True it is that no ideas are more liable 
to mythological disease than religious ideas, because 
they transcend those regions of our experience within 
which language has its natural origin, and must there- 
fore, according to their very nature, be satisfied with 
metaphorical expressions. ‘Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of 
man. + Yet even the religions of the ancient nations 
are by no means inevitably and altogether mytho- 
logical. On the contrary, as a diseased frame pre- 
supposes a healthy frame, so a mythological religion 
presupposes, I believe, a healthy religion. Before the 
Greeks could call the sky, or the sun, or the moon 


1 1 Cor. 11.9; Js. lxiv. 4, 


JUPITER. 525 


gods, it was absolutely necessary that they should 
have framed to themselves some idea of godhead. 
We cannot speak of King Solomon unless we first 
know what, in a general way, is meant by King, nor 
could a Greek speak of gods in the plural before he — 
had realised, in some way or other, the general predi- 
cate of the godhead. | Idolatry arises naturally when 
people say ‘The sun is god,’ instead of saying ‘The 
sun is of God;’ when they use God as a predicate, 
though, according to its very nature, it can be used as 
a subject only. This may have been inevitable, but 
it is all the more interesting to find out what the 
ancients meant to predicate when they called the sun 
or the moon gods. Until we have a clear concep- 
tion of this, we shall never enter into the true spirit 
of their religion. 

It is strange, however, that while we have endless 
books on the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, 
we have hardly any on their religion, and most people 
have brought themselves to imagine that what we 
eall religion—our trust in an all-wise, all-powerful, 
eternal Being, the Ruler of the world, whom we ap- 
proach in prayer and meditation, to whom we commit 
all our cares, and whose presence we feel not only in 
the outward world, but also in the warning voice 
within our hearts—that all this was unknown to the 
heathen world, and that their religion consisted sim- 
ply in the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of Apollo and 
Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. Yet this is not so. 
Mythology has encroached on ancient religion ; it has 
at some times wellnigh choked its very life; yet 
through the rank and poisonous vegetation of mythic 


526 CHAPTER XI. 


phraseology we may always catch a glimpse of that 
original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, 
and without which it could not enjoy even that 
parasitical existence which has been mistaken for 
independent vitality. 


Greek Religion. 


A few quotations will explain what I mean by an- 
cient religion as independent of ancient mythology. 
Homer, who, together with Hesiod, made the theogony 
or the history of the gods for the Greeks —a saying of 
Herodotus which contains more truth than is com- 
monly supposed—Homer, whose every page teems 
with mythology, nevertheless allows us many an in- 
sight into the inner religious life of his age. What 
did the swineherd Eumaios know of the intricate 
Olympian theogony? Had he ever heard the name 
of the Charites, or of the Harpyias? Could he have 
told who was the father of Aphrodite, who were her 
husbands and her children? I doubt it: and when 
Homer introduces him to us, speaking of this life 
and the higher powers that rule it, Eumaios knows 
only of just gods, ‘who hate cruel deeds, but honour 
justice and the righteous works of man.’! His whole 
view of life is built up on a complete trust in the 
Divine government of the world, without any such 
artificial supports as a belief in Hermes, the Erinys, 
the Nemesis, or Moira. 

‘Kat,’ says the swineherd to Ulysses, ‘and enjoy 
what is here, for God? will grant one thing, but an- 


1 Od. xiv. 838. 
* There is nothing to make us translate eds by a god rather than by 


- JUPITER. 527 


other he will refuse, whatever he will in his mind, for 
he can do all things.’ (Od. xiv. 444; x. 306.) 

This surely is religion, and it is religion untainted 
by mythology. Again, the prayer of the female slave, 
grinding corn in the house of Ulysses, is religion in. 
the truest sense. ‘Father Zeus,’ she says, ‘thou who 
rulest over gods and men, surely thou hast just thun- 
dered from the starry heaven, and there is no cloud 
anywhere. Thou showest this as a sign to some one. 
Fulfil now, even to me, miserable wretch! the prayer 
which I may utter. When Telemachos is afraid to 
approach Nestor, and declares to Mentor that he does 
not know what to say,! does not Mentor or Athene 
encourage him in words that might easily be trans- 
lated into the language of our own religion? ‘Tele- 
machos, she says, ‘some things thou wilt thyself 
perceive in thy mind, and others a divine spirit will 
prompt; for I do not believe that thou wast born and 
brought up without the will of the gods.’ 

The omnipresence and omniscience of the Divine 
Being is expressed by Hesiod in language slightly, 
yet not altogether, mythological :— 


/, 
mavta loov Atos dpOahpos Kal mdavra voncas,? 


The eyes of Zeus, which sees all and knows all; 


God; but even if we translated it a god, this could here only be meant 
for Zeus. (Cf. Od. iv. 236.) Cf. Welcker, p. 180. How the gods and 
Zeus are used almost promiscuously, we see in Od. i. 378-9; éyw 52 
Geovs emBwoouat aiéy édvras ai Ké moh Zeds SOou madwrita épyo 
yeverOa. 
1 Od. iii. 26: 

Tyr€pax’, GdrAa péev aitos evi ppect ahor vonoes, 

“Adia 62 Kal Saipwv bnoOjceTa’ od yap dtw 

Ov ce Oeay déxnte yevéobar Te Tpapéuer Te. 
Homer uses Oeés and Saiuwy for God, 2 Erga, 267. 


528 CHAPTER XI. 


and the conception of Homer, that ‘the gods them- 
selves come to our cities in the garb of strangers, to 
watch the wanton and the orderly conduct of men, ! 
though expressed in the language peculiar to the 
childhood of man, might easily be turned into our 
own sacred phraseology. Anyhow, we may call this 
religion—ancient, primitive, natural religion, imper- 
fect, no doubt, yet deeply interesting, and not without 
a divine afflatus.. How different is the undoubting 
trust of the ancient poets in the ever-present watch- 
fulness of the gods, from the language of later Greek 
philosophy, as expressed, for instance, by Protagoras. 
‘Of the gods,’ he says, ‘I am not able to know either 
that they are or that they are not; for many things 
prevent us from knowing it, the darkness, and the 
shortness of human life.’ ? 

The gods of Homer, though, in their mythological 
aspect, represented as weak, easily deceived, and led 
astray by the lowest passions, are nevertheless, in the 
more reverent language of religion, endowed with 
nearly all the qualities which we claim for a divine 
and perfect Being. The phrase which forms the key- 
note in many of the speeches of Odysseus, though 
thrown in only as it were parenthetically, 


Oeot dé te mavra icaow, ‘the Gods know all things,’ ? 


1 Od. xvii. 483 : 
“Avtivo’, ov pév Kad’ EBadres SVaTHVOY aAHTny, 
OvidAdper’, ei 59 Tov Tis eroupanos Oeds éoTw. 
Kai re Oeot feivorot éoukdres dAdOSaTOLoW, 
Tlavroto. ted €Oovres, EmarpwpWor woAnas, 
“AvOpwnwy UBpw TE Kal Ebvopinyv epopavTes. 

? Welcker, Griechische Gétterlehre, p. 245. 

3 Od. iv. 379, 468. 


JUPITER. 529 


gives us more of the real feeling of the untold mil- 
lions among whom the idioms of a language grow 
up, than all the tales of the tricks played by Juno to 
Jupiter, or by Mars to Vulcan. At critical moments, 
when the deepest feelings of the human heart are - 
stirred, the old Greeks of Homer seem suddenly to 
drop all learned and mythological metaphor, and to 
fall back on the universal language of true religion. 
Everything they feel is ordered by the immortal gods ; 
and though they do not rise to the conception of a 
Divine Providence which ordereth all things by eter- 
nal laws, no event, however small, seems to happen 
in the Iliad in which the poet does not recognise the 
active interference of a divine power. This inter- 
ference, if clothed in mythological language, assumes, 
it is true, the actual or bodily presence of one of the 
gods, whether Apollo, or Athene, or Aphrodite ; yet 
let us observe that Zeus himself, the god of gods, never 
descends to the battlefield of Troy. He was the true 
god of the Greeks before he became enveloped in the 
clouds of Olympian mythology; and in many a passage 
where theds is used, we may without irreverence trans- 
late it by God. Thus, when Diomedes exhorts the 
Greeks to fight till Troy is taken, he finishes his speech 
with these words: ‘Let all flee home; but we two, I 
and Sthenelos, will fight till we see the end of Troy : 
for we came with God’! Even if we translated ‘for 
we came with a god, the sentiment would still be 
religious, not mythological ; though of course it might 
easily be translated into mythological phraseology, if 


Pe Pix, 49: 
iE. Mm 


530 CHAPTER XI, 


we said that Athene, in the form of a bird, had flut- 
tered round the ships of the Greeks. Again, what can 
be more natural and more truly pious than the tone 
of resignation with which Nausikaa addresses the 
shipwrecked Ulysses ? ‘Zeus,’ she says, for she knows 
no better name, ‘Zeus himself, the Olympian, distri- 
butes happiness to the good and the bad, to every one, 
as he pleases. And to thee also he probably has sent 
this, and you ought by all means to bear it.’ 

Lastly, let me read the famous line, placed by Homer 
in the mouth of Peisistratos, the son of Nestor, when 
calling on Athene, as the companion of Telemachos, 
and on Telemachos himself, to pray to the gods before 
taking their meal: ‘ After thou hast offered thy liba- 
tion and prayed, as it is meet, give to him also after- 
wards the goblet of honey-sweet wine to pour out his 
libation, because I believe that he also prays to the 
immortals, for all men yearn after the gods.’ + 

It might be objected that no truly religious sen- 
timent was possible as long as the human mind was 
entangled in the web of polytheism ; that god, in fact, 
in its true sense, is a word which admits of no plural, 
and changes its meaning as soon as it assumes the 
terminations of that number. The Latin wdes means, 
in the singular, a sanctuary, but in the plural it 
assumes the meaning of a common dwelling-house ; 
and thus theds, too, in the plural, is supposed to be 
divested of that sacred and essentially divine character 
which it claims in the singular. When, moreover, 
such names as Zeus, Apollo, and Athene are applied to 


' navtes 5¢ Oeav xaTéovas dvOpwro.— Od. iii. 48. 


JUPITER, ~ 531 


the Divine Being, religion is considered to be out of 
the question, and hard words, such as idolatry and 
devil-worship, are applied to the prayers and praises 
of the early believers. 


Greek Religion as judged by Christianity. 


There is a great amount of incontestable truth in all 
this, but I cannot help thinking that full justice has 
never been done to the ancient religions of the world, 
not even to those of the Greeks and Romans, who, in 
so many other respects, are acknowledged by us as 
our teachers and models. The first contact between 
Christianity and the heathen religions was necessarily 
one of uncompromising hostility. It was the duty of 
the Apostles and the early Christians in general to 
stand forth in the name of the only true God, and to 
prove to the world that their God had nothing in 
common with the idols worshipped at Athens and at 
Ephesus. It was the duty of the early converts to 
forswear all allegiance to their former deities, and if 
they could not at once bring themselves to believe 
that the gods whom they had worshipped had no 
existence at all, except in the imagination of their 
worshippers, they were naturally led on to ascribe to 
them a kind of demoniacal nature, and to curse them 
as the offspring of that new principle of Evil! with 
which they had become acquainted in the doctrines of 
the early Church. In St. Augustine’s learned arguments 


* Thus in the Old Testament strange gods are called devils (Deut. 
xxxil. 17), ‘They sacrificed unto devils, not to God ; to gods whom they 
knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared 
not.” See Cornhill Magazine, 1869, p. 32. 


Mm 2 


532 CHAPTER XI. 


against paganism, the heathen gods are throughout 
treated as real beings, as demons who had the power 
of doing real mischief. I was told by a missionary, 
that among his converts in South Africa he discovered 
some who still prayed to their heathen deities; that, 
when remonstrated with, they told him that they 
prayed to them in order to avert their wrath ; and 
that, though their idols could not hurt so good a man 
as he was, they might inflict serious harm on their 
former worshippers. 

In Mexico we are told that the statues dug up 
among the remains of the great teocalli were buried 
in the court of the. university, to place them beyond 
the reach of the idolatrous rites which the Indians 
were inclined to pay to!them. At the solicitation of 
Mr. Bullock, however, they were again disinterred, to 
admit of his obtaining casts; and he furnishes this 
interesting account of the sensation excited by the 
restoration to light of the largest and most celebrated 
of the Mexican deities :—‘During the time it was 
exposed, the court of the university was crowded with 
people, most of whom expressed the most decided 
anger and contempt. Not so, however, all the In- 
dians. I attentively marked their countenances. Not 
a smile escaped them, or even a word. All was silence 
and attention. In reply to a joke of one of the 


* De Civitate Dei, ii. 25: ‘ Maligni isti spiritus, &c. Noxii deemones 
quos illi deos putantes colendos et venerandos arbitrabantur,’ &c. bid. 
viii, 22: ‘(Credendum deemones) esse spiritus nocendi cupidissimos, a 
justitia penitus alienos, superbia tumidos, invidentia lividos, fallacia 
callidos, qui in hoe quidem aére habitant, quia de cceli superioris subli- 
mitate dejecti, merito irregressibilis tranggressionis in hoc sibi congruo 
carcere preedamnati sunt.’ 


JUPITER. joo 


students, an old Indian remarked, “It is very true we 
have those very good Spanish gods, but we might still 
have been allowed to keep a few of those of our an- 
cestors.” And I was informed that chaplets of flowers 
had been placed on the figures by natives who had. 
stolen thither unseen in the evening.’ ! 

Only now and then, as in the case of the Fatum,2 
St. Augustine acknowledges that it is a mere name, 
and that if it is taken in its etymological sense, 
namely, as that which has once been spoken by God, 
and is therefore immutable, it might be retained. 
Nay, the same thoughtful writer goes even so far as 
to admit that the mere multiplicity of divine names 
might be tolerated.’ Speaking of the goddess For- 
tuna, who is also called Felicitas, he says: ‘Why 
should two names be used? But this can be tole- 
rated: for one and the same thing is not uncommonly 
called by two names, But what, he adds, ‘is the 


* Bullock, Six Months in Mewico, p. 111; Wilson, Prehistoric Man, 
p- 269. 

* De Civitate Dei, v.9: ‘Omnia vero fato fieri non dicimus, imo 
nulla fieri fato dicimus, quoniam fati nomen ubi solet a loquentibus poni, 
id est in constitutione siderum cum quisque conceptus aut natus est 
(quoniam res ipsa inaniter asseritur), nihil valere monstramus. Ordi- 
nem autem causarum, ubivoluntas Dei plurimum potest, neque negamus, 
neque fati vocabulo nuncupamus, nisi forte ut fatum a fando dictum 
intelligamus, id est, a loqguendo: non enim abnuere possumus esse 
seriptum in literis sanctis, Semel. locutus est Deus, duo hee audivi ; 
quoniam potestas est Det, et tibi, Domine, misericordia, quia tu reddes 
unicuique secundum opera ejus. Quod enim dictum est, semel locutus 
est, intelligitur immobiliter, hoc est, incommutabiliter est locutus, sicut 
novit incommutabiliter omnia que futura sunt, et que ipse facturus 
est. Hac itaque ratione possemus a fando fatum appellare, nisi hoc 
nomen jam in alia re soleret intelligi, quo corda hominum nolumus 
inclinari.’ 


3 De Civ. Det, iv. 18. 


534 CHAPTER XI. 


meaning of having different temples, different altars, 
different sacrifices ?’ 

Yet through the whole of St. Augustine’s work, and 
through all the works of earlier Christian divines, as 
far as I can judge, there runs the same spirit of hos- 
tility blinding them to all that may be good, and true, 
and sacred, and magnifying all that is bad, false, and 
corrupt in the ancient religions of mankind. Only 
the Apostles and their immediate disciples venture to 
speak in a different and, no doubt, in a more truly 
Christian spirit of the old forms of worships.t For 
even though we restrict ‘ the sundry times and divers 
manners in which God spake in times past unto the 
fathers by the prophets’ to the Jewish race, yet there 
are other passages which clearly show that the Apos- 
tles recognised a divine purpose and supervision even 
in the ‘times of ignorance’ at which, as they express 
it, ‘God winked.’? Nay, they go so far as to say that 
God in times past suffered (e¢ase)? all nations to walk 
in their own ways. And what can be more convinc- 
ing, more powerful than the language of St. Paul at 
Athens ?4+— 


For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an 
altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom 
therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that 
he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands; 

Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he 


* Cf, Stanley’s The Bible: its Form and its Substance. Three Ser- 
mons preached before the University of Oxford, 1863. 
* Acts xvii. *, A cis xiv. 16. * Acts xvii, 23. 


JUPITER. 535 


needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and 
all things ; 

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to 
dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the 
times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ; 

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one 
of us: 

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as 
certain also of your poets have said, For we are also his 
offspring." 


These are truly Christian words, this is the truly 
Christian spirit in which we ought to study the an- 
cient religions of the world: not as independent of 
God, not as the work of an evil spirit, as mere idolatry 
and devil-worship, not even as mere human fancy, but 
as a preparation, as a necessary part in the education 
of the human race—as a ‘seeking the Lord, if haply 
they might feel after him. There was a fulness of 
time, both for Jews and for Gentiles, and we must 
learn to look upon the ages that preceded it as neces- 
sary, under a divine purpose, for filling that appointed 
measure, for good and for evil, which would make the 
two great national streams in the history of mankind, 
the Jewish and the Gentile, the Semitic and the Aryan, 
reach their appointed measure, and overflow, so that 
they might mingle together and both be carried on by 
a new current, ‘the well of water springing up into 
everlasting life.’ 

And if in this spirit we search through the sacred 
ruins of the ancient world, we shall be surprised to 


1 Kleanthes says, é« tod ydp yévos éopery ; Aratus, matnp avdpav . . 
Too yap yévos éopev (Welcker, Griechische Gitterlehre, pp. 183, 246). 


536 CHAPTER XT. 


find how much more of true religion there is in what 
is called Heathen Mythology than we expected. Only, 
as St. Augustine said, we must not mind the names, 
strange and uncouth as they may sound on our ears. 
We are no longer swayed by the just fears which 
filled the hearts of early Christian writers; we can 
afford to be generous to Jupiter and to his worship- 
pers. Nay, we ought to learn to treat the ancient 
religions with some of the same reverence and awe 
with which we approach the study of the Jewish and 
of our own. ‘ The religious instinct,’ as Schelling says, 
‘should be honoured even in dark and confused mys- 
teries. We must only guard against a temptation to 
which an eminent writer and statesman of this country 
has sometimes yielded in his work on Homer, we must 
not attempt to find Christian ideas—ideas peculiar to 
Christianity—in the primitive faith of mankind. But, 
on the other hand, we may boldly look for those 
fundamental religious conceptions on which Chris- 
tianity itself is built up, and without which, as its 
natural and historical support, Christianity itself could 
never have been what it is. The more we go back, the 
more we examine the earliest germs of every religion, 
the purer, in one sense, shall we find the conceptions 
of the Deity, the nobler the purposes of each founder 
of a new worship. But the more we go back, the 
more helpless and crude also shall we find language in 
its endeavours to express what of all things was most 
difficult to express. The history of religion is in one 
sense a history of language. Many of the ideas em- 
bodied in the language of the Gospel would have been 
incomprehensible and inexpressible alike, if we ima- 


JUPITER. 537 


gine that by some miraculous agency they had been 
communicated to the primitive inhabitants of the 
earth. ven at the present moment missionaries find 
that they have first to educate their savage pupils, 
that is to say, to raise them to that level of language. 
and thought which had been reached by Greeks, 
Romans, and Jews at the beginning of our era, before 
the words and ideas of Christianity assume any reality 
to their minds, and before their own native language 
becomes strong enough for the purposes of translation. 
Words and thoughts here, as elsewhere, go together ; 
and from one point of view the true history of religion 
would, as I said, be neither more nor less than an 
account of the various attempts at expressing the 
Inexpressible. 

I shall endeavour to make this clear by at least 
one instance, and I shall select for it the most im- 
portant name in the religion and mythology of the 
Aryan nations, the name of Zeus, the god of gods 
(theds then), as Plato calls him. 


Dyaush-pitar, Zeus patér, Jupiter, Tyr. 


Let us consider, first of all, the fact, which cannot 
be doubted, and which, if fully appreciated, will be felt 
to be pregnant with the most startling and the most 
instructive lessons of antiquity—the fact, I mean, that 
Zeus, the most sacred name in Greek mythology, is 
the same word as Dyaus! in Sanskrit, Jovis? or Ju 

* Dyaus in Sanskrit is the nominative singular; Dyu the inflec- 
tional base. I use both promiscuously, though it would perhaps be 
better always to use Dyu. 


* Jovis in the nom, occurs in the verse of Ennius, giving the names 
of the twelve Roman Deities :— 


538 CHAPTER XI. 


in Jupiter in Latin, 7iw in Anglo-Saxon, preserved in 
Tiwesdeg. Tuesday, the day of the Eddie god T¥r ; 
Zio in Old High-German. 

This word was framed once, and once only : it was 
not borrowed by the Greeks from the Hindus, nor by 
the Romans and Germans from the Greeks. It must 
have existed before the ancestors of those primeval 
races became separate in language and religion ; before 
they left their common pastures, to migrate to the 
right hand and to the left, till the hurdles of their 
sheepfolds grew into the walls of the great cities of 
the world. 

Here, then, in this venerable word, we may look for 
some of the earliest religious thoughts of our race, 
expressed and enshrined within the imperishable 
walls of a few simple letters. What did Dyu mean 
in Sanskrit? How is it used there? What was the 
root which could be forced to reach the highest 
aspirations of the human mind? We should find it 
difficult to discover the radical or predicative meaning 
of Zeus in Greek; but dyaus in Sanskrit tells its 
own tale. It is derived from the root dyu or div, 
which in Sanskrit has been supplanted by the deri- 
vative root dyut, to beam. A root of this rich and 
expansive meaning would be applicable to many 
conceptions: the dawn, the sun, the sky, the day, 
the stars, the eyes, the ocean, and the meadow, 
might all be spoken of as bright, gleaming, smiling, 


& 
Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, 
Mercurius, Jovi’, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo. 


Dius in Dius Fidius, i. e. Zeds ticti0s, belongs to the same class of words 
Cf. Hartung, Religion der Romer, ii. 44. 


JUPITER. 539 


blooming, sparkling. But in the actual and settled 
language of India, dyu, as a noun, means principally 
sky and day. Before the ancient hymns of the Veda 
had disclosed to us the earliest forms of Indian thought 
and language, the Sanskrit noun dyu was hardly 
known as the name of an Indian deity, but only as a 
feminine, and as the recognised term forsky. The fact 
that dyu remained in common use as a name for sky 
was sufficient to explain why dyu in Sanskrit should 
never have assumed that firm mythological character 
which belongs to Zeus in Greek; for as long as a word 
retains the distinct signs of its original import, and is 
applied as an appellative to visible objects, it does not 
easily lend itself to the metamorphic processes of early 
mythology. As dyu in Sanskrit continued to mean 
sky, though as a feminine only, it was difficult for the 
same word, even as a masculine, to become the germ 
of any very important mythological formations. Lan- 
guage must die before it can fully enter into a new 
stage of mythological life. 

Even in the Veda, where dyu still occurs as a 
masculine, as an active noun, and discloses the same 
germs of thought which in Greece and Rome grew 
into the name of the supreme god of the firmament, 
Dyu, the deity, the lord of heaven, the ancient god 
of light, never assumes any powerful mythological 
vitality, never rises to the rank of a supreme deity. 
In the early lists of Vedic deities, Dyu is not included, 
and the real representative of Jupiter in the Veda is 
not Dyu but Indra,a name of Indian growth, and 
unknown in any other independent branch of Aryan 
language. Indra was another conception of the 


540 CHAPTER Xt. 


bright blue sky, but partly because its etymological 
meaning was obscured, partly through the more active 
poetry and worship of certain Rishis, this name 
gained a complete ascendancy over that of Dyu, 
and nearly extinguished the memory in India of one 
of the earliest, if not the earliest, name by which 
the Aryans endeavoured to express their first concep- 
tion of the Deity. Originally, however—and this is 
one of the most important discoveries which we owe 
to the study of the Veda—originally Dyu was the 
bright heavenly deity in India as well as in Greece. 
Let us examine, first, some passages of the Veda 
in which dyu is used as an appellative in the sense 
of sky. We read (Rigveda, i. 161, 14): ‘The 
Maruts (storms) go about in the sky, Agni (fire) 
on earth, the wind goes in the air; Varuna goes 
about in the waters of the sea, &c. Here dyu means 
the sky, as much as prithivi? means the earth, and 
antariksha the air. The sky is frequently spoken 
of together with the earth, and the air is placed be- 
tween the two (antariksha). We find expressions 
such as heaven and earth;! air and heaven;? and 
heaven, air, and earth’ The sky, dyu, is called the 
third, as compared with the earth, and we meet in 
the Atharva-Veda with expressions such as ‘in 
the third heaven from hence.’4 This, again, gave 
rise to the idea of three heavens.> ‘The heavens,’ 


* Rigveda, i. 39,4: nahi....ddhi dyd4vi n4é bhtiimy4ém. 

* Rigveda, vi. 52,13: antérikshe.... dydvi. 

* Rigveda, viii. 6,15: n& dydvah indram égas4 n& antarik- 
shani vagrinam n& vivyakanta bhttmayah. 

* Ath.-Veda, v. 4,3: trit?yasyam itéh divi (fem.). 

° See Rigveda-Sanhita, translated by M. M., vol. i. p. 36. 


JUPITER. 541 


we read, ‘the air, and the earth (all in the plural) can- 
not contain the majesty of Indra’; and in one passage 
the poet prays that his glory may be ‘ exalted as if 
heaven were piled on heaven.’ ! 

Another meaning which belongs to dyu in the 
Veda is day.” So many suns are so many days, and © 
even in English yestersun was used instead of yester- 
day as late as the time of Dryden. Diva, an instru- 
mental case with the accent on the first syllable, means 
by day, and is used together with naktam,? by night. 
Other expressions, such as divé dive, dyavi dyavi, 
or 4nu dytin, are of frequent occurrence to signify 
day by day.* 3 

But besides these two meanings, Dyu clearly con- 
veys a different idea as used in some few verses of the 
Veda. There are invocations in which the name of 
Dyu stands first, and where he is invoked together 
with other beings who are always treated as gods. 
For instance (Rigveda, vi. 51, 5) :— 

‘ Dyaus (Sky), father, and Przthivi (Earth), kind 
mother, Agni (Fire), brother, ye Vasu’s (Bright ones), 
have mercy upon us!’? 


1 Rigveda, vii. 24, 5: divi iva dy&am 4dhi nah sré6matam 
dhah. 

2 Rigveda, vi. 24,7: n&4 ydm gdranti sarddah né masih na 
dyavah indram avakarsdyanti. (‘Him whom harvests do not age, 
nor moons; Indra, whom days do not wither.’) 

Rigveda, vii. 66,11: vi yé dadhtid sardéddam ma@sam &t dhar, 

$ Rigveda, i. 139, 5. 

* Rigveda, i. 112, 25: dytibhis akttbhiz pdri patam asman. 
(‘ Protect us by day and by night, ye Asvin.’) 

5 Dyats pitar préithivi matar 4dhruk. 

Zev(s), waTep wAaTELa pHTEp aTpex(és). 
Agne bhra&tar vasavah mrildta nah. 
Jgnis _frater be mild nos, 


542 CHAPTER XI. 


Here Sky, Earth, and Fire are classed together as 
divine powers, but Dyaus, it should be remarked, 
occupies the first place. This is the same in other 
passages where a long list of gods is given, and where 
Dyaus, if his name is mentioned at all, holds always 
a prominent place.’ 

It should further be remarked that Dyaus is most 
frequently called pitar or father, so much so that 
Dyaushpitar in the Veda becomes almost as much 
one word as Jupiter in Latin. In one passage (1. 
191, 6), we read, ‘Dyaus is father, Prithivi, the 
earth, your mother, Soma your brother, Aditi your 
sister.’ In another passage (iv. 1, 10), he is called 
Dyaus, the father, the creator. 

We now have to consider some still more impor- 
tant passages in which Dyu and Indra are men- 
tioned together as father and son, like Kronos and 
Zeus, only that in India Dyu is the father, Indra 
the son; and Dyu has at last to surrender his supre- 
macy which Zeus in Greek retains to the end. In 
a hymn addressed to Indra, and to Indra as the 
most powerful god, we read (Rv. iv. 17, 4): ‘Dyu, 
thy parent, was reputed strong, the maker of Indra 
was mighty in his works ; he (who) begat the heavenly 
Indra, armed with the thunderbolt, who is immove- 
able, as the earth, from his seat.’ 

Here, then, Dyu would seem to be above Indra, 


1 Rigveda, i. 186, 6: Ndmah Divé brihaté rédasibhyam ; 
then follow Mitrd, Véruna, Indra, Agni, Aryamdn, Bhaga. Cf. 
vi. 50,13: Dyath devébhih prithivi samudrafhk. Here, though 
Dyaus does not stand first, he is distinguished as being mentioned at 
the head of the devas, or bright gods. 

2 Dyatish pitd ganitd. . Zevs, marnp, yevernp. 


JUPITER. 543 


> 


just as Zeus is above Apollo. But there are other 
passages in this very hymn which clearly place 
Indra above Dyu, and thus throw an important 
light on the mental process which made the Hindus 
look on the son, on Indra,’ the Jupiter pluvius, the 
conquering light of heaven, as more powerful, more 
exalted, than the bright sky from whence he arose. 
The hymn begins with asserting the greatness of 
Indra, which even heaven and earth had to acknow- 
ledge ; and, at Indra’s birth, both heaven and earth 
are said to have trembled. Now heaven and earth, 
it must be remembered, are, mythologically speaking, 
the father and mother of Indra, and if we read in the 
same hymn that Indra ‘does not regard his mother 
much, nor his father who begat him,’? this can only 
be meant to express the same idea, namely, that 
the active god who resides in the sky, who rides on 
the clouds, and hurls his bolt at the demons of dark- 
ness, impresses the mind of man at a later time more 
powerfully than the serene expanse of heaven and 
the wide earth beneath. Yet Dyu also must for- 
merly have been conceived as a more active, I might 


* Indra, a name peculiar to India, admits of but one etymology, 
i.e. it must be derived from the same root, whatever that may be, which 
in Sanskrit yielded indu, drop, sap. It meant originally the giver of 
rain, the Jupiter pluvius, a deity in India more often present to the 
mind of the worshipper than any other. Cf. Benfey, Orient und Occi- 
dent, vol. i. p. 49. 

2 iv.17,12: Kfyat svit Indrahk &dhi eti math Kiyat pitth 
ganitth yéh gagana. In a hymn of the last Mandala, x. 54, 3, 
Indra is said to have from his own body produced together his father 
and mother. Cf. J. Muir, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh, xxiii. part 3,552. Sayama explains the father and mother 
of Indra as Heaven and Earth, and refers to a Vedic passage in sup- 
port of this view. 


544, CHAPTER XI. 


say, a more dramatic god, for the poet actually com- 
pares Indra, when destroying his enemies, with Dyu, 
wielding the thunderbolt.' 

If with this hymn we compare passages of other 
hymns, we see even more clearly how the idea of 
Indra, the conquering hero of the thunderstorm, led 
with the greatest ease to the admission of a father 
who, though reputed strong before Indra, was ex- 
celled in prowess by his son. If the dawn is called 
divigah, born in the sky, the very adjective would 
become the title-deed to prove her the daughter of 
Dyu; and so she is called. The same with Indra. 
He rose from the sky; hence the sky was his father. 
He rose from the horizon where the sky seems to em- 
brace the earth ; hence the earth must be his mother. 
As sky and earth had been invoked before as benefi- 
cent powers, they would the more easily assume the 
paternity of Indra; though even if they had not he- 
fore been worshipped as gods, Indra himself, as born 
of heaven and earth, would have raised these parents 
to the rank of deities. Thus Avonos in the later 
Greek mythology, the father of Zeus, owes his very 
existence to his son, namely, to Zeus Kronion, Kronion 
meaning originally the son of time, or the ancient 
of days.2, Uranos, on the contrary, though suggested 
by Uranion, the heavenly, had evidently, like Heaven 
and Earth, enjoyed an independent existence before 


1 iv. 17,18: vibhaiganth aséniman iva dyath. 

2 Welcker, Giriechische Gitterlehre, p. 144. Zeus is also called 
Kronios. Ibid. pp. 150, 155, 158. Chips, vol.ii.p.155, Zeus only is 
called Kpoviéns in Homer, not Hades or Poseidon. He is never called 
technically the son of Rhea, though Rhea, as the mother of the three 
brothers, is mentioned. J/. xv. 187. 


JUPITER. 545 


he was made the father of Kronos, and the grand- 
father of Zeus; for we find his prototype in the Vedic 
god Varuna, But while in India Dyu was raised 
to be the father of a new god, Indra, and by 
being thus raised became really degraded, or, if we 
may say so, shelved, Zeus in Greece always remained 
the supreme god, till the dawn of Christianity put 
an end to the mythological phraseology of the ancient 
world. 

We read, i. 181, 1:1 

‘Before Indra the divine Dyu bowed, before 
Indra bowed the great Prithivi.’ 

Again, i. 61, 9:2 ‘The greatness of Indra indeed 
exceeded the heaven (i.e. dyaus), the earth, and 
the sky.’ 

1.54,4:° ‘Thou hast caused the top of heaven 
(of dyaus) to shake.’ 

Expressions like these, though no doubt meant to 
realise a conception of natural phenomena, were sure 
to produce mythological phraseology, and if in India 
Dyu did not grow to the same proportions as Zeus 
in Greece, the reason is simply that dyu retained 
throughout too much of its appellative power, and 
that Indra, the new name and the new god, absorbed 
all the channels that could have supported the life of 
Dai 


Let us see now how the same conception of Dyu, 


1fndraya hi dyath surah Snamnata indraya mah? 
prithivi varimabhih. 

2 Asydé ft evd pra ririke mahitv4m divdéh prithivyas pari 
antdrikshat. 

3 Tvdm divah brihatéh sinu kopayah, 

* Cf. Buttmann, Veber Apollon und Artemis, Mythologus, i. p. 8. 


II, Nn 


546 CHAPTER XI, 


as the god of light and heaven, grew and spread in 
Greece. And here let us observe what has been 
pointed out by others, but has never been placed in 
so clear a light as of late by M. Bertrand in his lucid 
work, Sur les Diewx Protectewrs (1858),—that where- 
as all other deities in Greece are more or less local or 
tribal, Zeus was known in every village and to every 
clan. He is at home on Ida, on Olympus, at Dodona. 
While Poseidon drew to himself the Aolian family, 
Apollo the Dorian, Athene the Ionian, there was one 
more powerful god for all the sons of Hellen, Dorians, 
Kolians, Ionians, Achzeans, the Panhellenic Zeus. That 
Zeus meant sky we might have guessed, perhaps, even 
if no traces of the word had been preserved in Sanskrit. 
The prayer of the Athenians— 


@ @ > , A - > , a > - 
voov taov, ® pire Zev, kata THs apovpas Tov AOnvaiev Kal Tov 
TrEOLwY $ 


(‘Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and 
on the fields !’) 


is Clearly addressed to the sky, though the mere 
addition of ‘dear, in ‘O dear Zeus,’ is sufficient to 
change the sky into a personal being. 

The original meaning of Zetis might equally have 
been guessed from such words as Dioséméa, portents 
in the sky, i.e. thunder, lightning, rain; Dzipétés, 
swollen by rain, zt. fallen from heaven ; éndios, in the 
open air, or at midday; evdios, calm, Lit. well-skyed, 
and others. In Latin, too, sub Jove frigido, under 


* Hor. Od. i. 1, 25. Pott, Ht. Forsch. ii. 2, p. 953. Jupiter uvidus, 
Virg. Georg. i. 418; madidus, Mart. vii. 36, 1. 


JUPITER. 547 


the cold sky, sub diu, sub dio, and sub divo,! under 
the open sky, are palpable enough.’ 

But then it was always open to say that the ancient 
names of the gods were frequently used to signify 
either their abodes or their special gifts—that Mep- 
tunus, for instance, was used for the sea, Pluto for the 
lower regions, Jupiter for the sky, and that this would 
in no way prove that these names originally meant 
sea, lower world, andsky. Thus Nevius said, Cocus edit 
Neptunum, Venerem, Cererem, meaning, as Festus tells 
us, by Neptune fishes, by Venus vegetables, by Ceres 
bread.? Minerva is used both for mind in pingui 
Minerva and for threads of wool. When some an- 
cient philosophers, as quoted by Aristotle, said that 
Zeus rains not in order to increase the corn, but from 
necessity,? this no doubt shows that these early | 
positive philosophers looked upon Zeus as the sky, 
and not as a free personal divine being; but again it 
would leave it open to suppose that they transferred 
the old divine name of Zeus to the sky, just as 
Ennius, with the full consciousness of the philoso- 
pher, exclaimed, ‘ Aspice hoc sublime candens quem 
invocant omnes Jovem. ® An expression like this is 
the result of later reflection, and it would in no way 
prove that either Zeus or Jupiter were meant origin- 
ally for the sky. 

1 Virg. Georg. iii. 435. 

2 ¢Dium fulgur appellabant diurnum quod putabant Jovis, ut noctur- 
num Summani,’—Festus, p. 57. 

3 Festus, p. 45. * Arnobius, v. 45. 


> Grote, History of Greece, i. 501, 539. 
° Vahlen, Enniane Poesis Reliquie : Leipzig, 1854, p. 142. 


Nn 2 


548 CHAPTER XI. 


A Greek at the time of Homer would have scouted 
the suggestion that he, in saying Zet%is, meant no 
more than sky. By Zeus the Greeks meant more 
than the visible sky, more even than the sky per- 
sonified. With them the name Zeus was, and re- 
mained, in spite of all mythological obscurations, the 
name of the Supreme Deity ; and even if they remem- 
bered that originally it meant sky, this would have 
troubled them as ‘little as if they remembered that 
thymos, mind, meant originally blast. Dyaus or sky 
was but one out of many names which for a time 
satisfied that universal yearning for a name that per- 
vades the history of all religions. What we know 
as the prayer of Jacob, ‘Tell me, I pray thee, thy 
name, ' and as the question of Moses, ‘What shall I 
say unto them if they shall say to me, What is his 
name ?’* must at an early time have been the question 
and the prayer of every nation on earth. The name — 
itself, whatever its original meaning might have been, 
soon acquired a sacred character. The Jews did not 
think it right to pronounce it; the Romans kept 
their own name secret, that strangers might not know 
it, and invoke their tutelary genius by his right 
name. 

We can hardly doubt that the statement of He- 
rodotus (ii. 52) rests on theory rather than fact, yet 
even as a theory the tradition that the Pelasgians 
for a long time offered prayer and sacrifice to the 
gods, without having names for any one of them, is 
curious. Lord Bacon states the very opposite of the 


1 Genesis xxxii. 29. 2 Exodus iii. 18. 


JUPITER. 549 


West Indians, namely, that they had names for each 
of their gods, but no word for god.! 

As soon as man becomes conscious of himself, as 
soon as he perceives himself as distinct from all other 
things and persons, he at the same moment becomes. 
conscious of a Higher Self, a higher power, without 
which he feels that neither he nor anything else would 
have any life or reality. We are so fashioned—and it 
is no merit of ours—that as soon as we awake, we 
feel on all sides our dependence on something else, and 
all nations join in some way or other in the words of 
the Psalmist, ‘It is He that hath made us, and not we 
ourselves. This is the first sense of the Godhead, 
the sensus numinis as it has been well called; for it 
is a sensus—an immediate perception, not the result 
of reasoning or generalising, but an intuition as 
irresistible as the impressions of our senses. In 
receiving it we are passive, at least as passive as in 
receiving from above the image of the sun, or any 
other impressions of the senses; whereas in all our 
reasoning processes we are active rather than passive. 
This sensus numinis, or, as we may call it in more 
homely language, faith, is the source of all religion; it 
is that without which no religion, whether true or false, 
is possible. But what name could be assigned to it ? 

Tacitus? tells us that the Germans applied the 
names of gods to that hidden thing which they per- 
ceived by reverence alone. The same in Greece. But 
in giving to the object of the sensus nwminis the name 


1 On nameless gods, see Gifford Lectures, vol. i. p. 225, n. 
2 Germania, 9: ‘Deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud 
quod sola reverentia vident.’ 


550 CHAPTER XI. 


of Zeus, the fathers of Greek religion were fully 
aware that they meant more than sky. The high and 
brilhant sky has in many languages and many re- 
ligions’ been regarded as the abode of God, and the 
name of the abode might easily be transferred to him 
who abides in Heaven. Aristotle (De Colo, i. 1, 3) 
remarks that ‘all men have a suspicion of gods, and 
all assign to them the highest place. And again 
(l. c., i. 2, 1) he says, ‘The ancients assigned to the 
gods heaven and the space above, because it was 
alone eternal.’ The slaves, as Procopius states,? wor- 
shipped at one time one god only, and he was the 
maker of the lghtning. Perkwnas, in Lituanian, 
the god of the thunderstorm, is used synonymously 
with deivaitis, deity. In Chinese Tien means sky 
and day; and the same word, like the Aryan Dyw, is 
recognised in Chinese as the name of God. Many 
have been the controversies between theologians and 
philosophers in China as to what was really meant 
by that name. Even though, by an edict of the Pope 
in 1715, Roman Catholic missionaries were prohibited 
from using Zen as the name for God, and ordered to 
use Tien chu, Lord of heaven, instead, language has 
proved more powerful than the Pope. In the Tataric 
and Mongolic dialects, Tengri, possibly derived from 
the same source as Ten, signifies (1) heaven, (2) the 
God of heaven, (3) God in general, or good and 
evil spirits.? The same meanings are ascribed by 


1 See Carritre, Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung, 
p. 49. 

? Welcker, J. c. i. 187, 166. Proc. de Bello Gothico, 3, 14. 

* Castrén, Finnische Mythologie, p.14. Welcker, Griechische Git- 
terlehre, p. 130. Klaproth, Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren, p. 9. 


JUPITER. 551 


Castrén to the Finnish word Jumala, thunderer.! 
Nay, even in our own language, ‘heaven’ may still 
be used almost synonymously with God. The pro- 
digal son, when he returns to his father, says, ‘1 will 
arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, 
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before 
thee.’ ? 

Whenever we thus find the name of heaven used 
for God, we must bear in mind that those who 
originally adopted such a name were transferring 
that name from one object, visible to their bodily 
eyes, to another object grasped by another organ of 
knowledge, by the vision of the soul. Those who at 
first called God Heaven had something within them 
that they wished to call—the growing image of God ; 
those who at a later time called Heaven God, had 
forgotten that they were predicating of Heaven some- 
thing that was higher than Heaven. 


zeus, the Supreme God. 


That Zeus was originally to the Greeks the Supreme 
God, the true God—nay, at some times their only 
God—can be perceived in spite of the haze which 
mythology has raised around his name.’ But this 
is very different from saying that Homer believed in 
one supreme, omnipotent, and omniscient being, the 
creator and ruler of the world. Such an assertion 


Bohtlingk, Die Sprache der Jakuten, Worterbuch, p. 90, 8. v. ‘ tagara.’ 
Kowalewski, Dictionnaire Mongol-Russe-Frangais, t. iil. p. 1763. See 
M. M., Introduction to the Science of Religion, 1870, p. 40. 

1 Castrén, J. c. p. 24. 2 Luke xv. 18. 

§ Of, Welcker, p. 129 seq. 


552 CHAPTER XI. 


would require considerable qualification. The Homeric 
Zeus is full of contradictions. He is the subject of 
mythological tales, and the object of religious adora- 
tion. He is omniscient, yet he is cheated; he is 
omnipotent, and yet defied; he is eternal, yet he has 
a father; he is just, yet he is guilty of crime. Now 
these very contradictions ought to teach us a lesson. 
If all the conceptions of Zeus had sprung from one 
and the same source, these contradictions could not 
have existed. If Zeus had simply meant God, the 
Supreme God, he could not have been the gon of 
Kronos or the father of Minos. If, on the other 
hand, Zeus had been a merely mythological person- 
age, such as Kos, the dawn, or Helios, the sun, he 
could never have been addressed as he is addressed in 
the famous prayer of Achilles.1 In looking through 
Homer and other Greek writers, we have no difficulty 
in collecting a number of passages in which Zeus is 
clearly conceived as their supreme God. For instance, 
the ancient song of the Pebeize or Peleiades at Dodona,2 
the oldest sanctuary of Zeus, was: ‘Zeus was, Zeus is, 
Zeus will be, oh great Zeus. The earth sends forth 
her fruit, therefore call the earth mother!’ There is 
little or no trace of mythology in this. In Homer, 
Zeus is called ‘the father, the most glorious, the 

**O lord Zeus, thou of Dodona, worshipped by the Pelasgians, 
dwelling far away, yet caring for the storm-lashed Dodona,—and round 
there dwell the Selli, thy prophets, with unwashen feet, sleeping on the 
earth! Truly thou hast before heard my voice when I prayed to thee; 
and thou hast conferred honour upon me, and hast mightily smitten the 
people of the Achaii: oh, fulfil thou now also this my desire.’ Jl, xvi. 
33-088: 


* Welcker, p. 143. Paus. x. 12,10. See supra, p. 435. 
° Welcker, p. 176. 


JUPITER, 553 


greatest, who rules over all, mortals and immortals.’ 
He is the counsellor, whose counsels the other gods 
cannot fathom (//. i. 545). His power is the greatest 
(IZ, ix. 25), and it is he who gives strength, wisdom, 
and honour to man. The mere expression, ‘father of 
gods and men,’ so frequently applied to Zeus and to 
Zeus alone, would be sufficient to show that the re- 
ligious conception of Zeus was never quite forgotten, 
and that in spite of the various Greek legends on the 
creation of the human race, the idea of Zeus as the 
father and creator of all things, but more particularly 
as the father and creator of man, was never quite 
extinct in the Greek mind. It breaks forth in the 
unguarded language of Philcetios in the Odyssey, who 
charges Zeus” that he does not pity men though wt 
was he who created them; and in the philosophical 
view of the universe put forth by Kleanthes or by 
Aratos it assumes that very form under which it is 
known to us, from the quotation of St. Paul, ‘For we 
are also his offspring. Likeness with God (homoidtés 
theo) was the goal of Pythagorean ethies,® and accord- 
ing to the author of De Mundo, it was an old saying 
that everything exists from God and through God.* 
All the greatest poets after Homer know of Zeus as 
the highest god, as the true god. ‘Zeus,’ says Pindar,° 

: ‘Jupiter omnipotens regum rerumque defimque 
Progenitor genitrixque detm.’ 
Valerius Soranus, in Aug., De Civ. Det, vii. 10. 

a Od XX AAA: 

Zev maTep, ov Tis ceo Oewy drAOowWTEpOS GAAOS* 
ove édealpes avdpas Enijy 52 yelveat avrTds. 
> Cie, Leg. i. 8. Welcker, Griechische Gotterlehre, i. 249. 


* De Mundo, 6. Welcker, Griechische Gitterlehre, vol. i. p. 240. 
° Pind. Fragm. v.6. Bunsen, Gott in der Geschichte, 11.851. O1.18,12. 


554 CHAPTER XI. 


‘obtained something more than what the gods pos- 
sessed.’ He calls him the eternal father, and he 
claims for man a divine descent. 


One (he says) is the race of men,’ one that of the gods. We 
both breathe from one mother; but our powers, all sundered, keep 
us apart, so that the one is nothing, while the brazen heaven, 
the immoveable seat, endureth for ever. Yet even thus we are 
still, whether by greatness of mind or by form, like unto the 
immortals, though we know not to what goal, either by day or 
by night, destiny has destined us to haste on. 

For the children of the day, what are we, and what not ? 
Man is the dream of a shadow. But if there comes a ray sent 
from Zeus, then there is for men bright splendour and a 
cheerful life.’ 


Aischylus again leaves no doubt as to his real view 
of Zeus. His Zeus is a being different from all other 
gods. ‘Zeus,’ he says, in a fragment,® ‘is the earth, 
Zeus the air, Zeus the sky, Zeus is all and what is 
above all. ‘All was done for the gods, he says, 
‘except to be lords, for free is no one but Zeus.’4 


* Pind. Nem. vi. 1 (cf. xi. 43; xii. 7); 
“Ev dvdpav, ev Oe@v yévos: x puds 5¢ mvéoper 
Hatpos aupdrepor Sieipyer S& maca Kexpipéva 
évvapmis, ws TO pev ovdév, 6 5E yddAxeEos doparés aiév €dos 
Hever ovpavds. GAAd TL mpocpépopev Eumay 7) péyay 
voov 7To Ppvow abavarors, 
xaimep epapepiay ove eiddres oddi pera vdnras dupe méTpHOS 
oiav Tv’ éypaye Spapety worl ordOpar. 
2 Pind. Pyth. viii. 95: 
"Emdpepou’ ti 5€ Tus; Th 5€ od Tus; Has dvap 
dvOpwmos. GX’ bray atyAa didad5oT0s EAOn, 
Aapmpov péyyos ereotiy avdpav 
kal peiduyos aiwy. 
° Cf. Carritre, Die Kunst, vol. i. p. 79. 
* Prom. vinetus, 49: 
dmavr’ émpaxOn mrAV Oeotar Kotpaveiy, 
EAevOepos yap ovis eat AH Ads. 


JUPITER. 555 


He calls him the lord of infinite time ;’ nay, he knows 
that the name Zeus? is but indifferent, and that be- 
hind that name there is a power greater than all 
names. Thus the Chorus in the Agamemnon says: 


Zeus, whoever he is, if this be the name by which he loves to - 
be called—by this name I address him. For, if I verily want 
to cast off the idle burden of my thought, proving all things, I 
cannot find one on whom to cast it, except Zeus only. 

For he who before was great, proud in his all-conquering 
might, he is not cared for any more ; and he who came after, 
he found his victor and is gone. But he who sings wisely songs 
of victory for Zeus, he will find all wisdom. For Zeus leads 
men in the way of wisdom, he orders that suffering should be 
our best school. Nay, even in sleep there flows from the heart 
suffering reminding us of suffering, and wisdom comes to us 
against our will. 


One more passage from Sophocles,* to show how 
with him too Zeus is, in true moments of anguish 
and religious yearning, the same being whom we call 
God. In the ‘ Electra, the Chorus says: 


Courage, courage, my child! There is still in heaven the 
great Zeus, who watches over all things and rules. Commit 
thy exceeding bitter grief to him, and be not too angry against 
thy enemies, nor forget them. 


1 Supplices, 574: Leds aidvos xkpéwav anavarov. 

2 Kleanthes, in a hymn quoted by Welcker, ii. p. 193, addresses Zeus 
Kvdicr’ adavatwv, modkumvupe, TayKpares aiel, xalpe Zev. 
‘Most glorious among immortals, with many names, almighty always, 

hail to thee, Zeus!’ 
3 Electra, v. 188: 
Oapoet por, Odpoe, TEKVOY, 
éTe peyas ovpay@ 
Zevs, ds épopd mavra Kat Kparviver 
@ Tov bmEeparyh xoAov vépuouca, 
Bn ots éxOaipes tmepaxeo pnt éemdAdOov, 


556 CHAPTER XI. 


Zeus, the Sky personified. 


But while in passages like these the original con- 
ception of Zeus as the true god, the god of gods, 
preponderates, there are innumerable passages in 
which Zeus is clearly the sky personified, and hardly 
differs from other deities, such as the sun-god or the 
goddess of the moon. The Greek was not aware that 
there were different tributaries which entered from 
different points into the central idea of Zeus. To 
him the name Zeus conveyed but one idea, and the 
contradictions between the divine and the natural 
elements in his character were slurred over by all 
except the few who thought for themselves, and who 
knew, with Pindar, that no legend, no sacred myth, 
could be true that reflects discredit on a divine being. 
But to us it is clear that the story of Zeus descending 
as golden rain into the prison of Danaé was meant 
for the bright sky delivering the earth from the bonds 
of winter, and awakening in her a new life by the 
golden showers of spring. Many of the stories that 
are told about the love of Zeus for human or half- 
human heroines have a similar origin. The idea 
which we express by the phrase, ‘ King by the grace 
of God,’ was expressed in ancient language by calling 
kings the descendants of Zeus.’ This simple and 
natural conception gave rise to innumerable local 
legends. Great families and whole tribes claimed 
Zeus for their ancestor; and as it was necessary in 

* Il. ii. 445, dorpepées. Od. iv. 691, Octo. Callim. Hym. in Jovem, 
79, x Ads BaoiAjes. Bertrand, Dieux Protecteurs, p. 157. Kemble, 


Saxons in England, i. p. 835. Cox, Tales of Thebes and Argos, 1864, 
Introduction, p. i. 


JUPITER, 557 


each case to supply him with a wife, the name of the 
country was naturally chosen to supply the wanting 
Imk in these sacred genealogies. Thus dacus, the 
famous king of Aigina, was fabled to be the offspring 
of Zeus. This need not have meant more than that 
he was a powerful, wise, and just king. But it soon 
came to mean more. Atacus was fabled to have been 
really the son of Zeus, and Zeus is represented as 
carrying off Aigina and making her the mother of 
Macus. 

The Arcadians (Ursini) derived their origin from 
Arkas; their national deity was Kallisto, another 
name for Artemis! What happens? Arkas is made 
the son of Zeus and Kallisto; though, in order to save 
the good name of Artemis, the chaste goddess, Kallisto 
is here represented as one of her companions only. 
Soon the myth is spun out still further. Kallisto is 
changed into a bear by the jealousy of Here. She is 
then, after having been killed by Artemis, identified 
with Arktos, the Great Bear, for no better reasons 
than the Virgin was identified in later times with the 
zodiacal sign of Virgo.? And if it be asked why the 
constellation of the Bear never sets, an answer was 
readily given—the wife of Zeus had asked Okeanos 
and Thetis not to allow her rival to contaminate the 
pure waters of the sea. 

It is said that Zeus, in the form of a bull, carried 
off Huropa. This means no more, if we translate it 
back into Sanskrit, than that the strong rising sun 
(vrishan) carries off the wide-shining dawn. This 


1 Miller, Dorier, i. 372. Jacobi, s. v. Kallisto. 
* Maury, Légendes pieuses, p. 39, n. 


558 CHAPTER XI. 


story is alluded to again and again in the Veda. 
Now Minos, the ancient king of Crete, required 
parents; so Zeus and Europa were assigned to him. 

There was nothing that could be told of the sky 
that was not in some form or other ascribed to Zeus. 
It was Zeus who rained, who thundered, who snowed, 
who hailed, who sent the hghtning, who gathered the 
clouds, who let loose the winds, who held the rain- 
bow. It is Zeus who orders the days and nights, the 
months, seasons, and years. It is he who watches over 
the fields, who sends rich harvests, and who tends the 
flocks... Like the sky, Zeus dwells on the highest 
mountains; like the sky, Zeus embraces the earth ; 
like the sky, Zeus is eternal, unchanging, the highest 
god.2, For good or for evil, Zeus the sky and Zeus 
the god are wedded together in the Greek mind, 
language triumphing over thought, tradition over 
religion. 

And strange as this mixture may appear, incredible 
as it may seem that two ideas like god and sky should 
have run into one, and that the atmospheric changes 
of the air should have been mistaken for the acts of 
Him who rules the world, let us not forget that not 
in Greece only, but everywhere, where we can watch 
the growth of early language and early religion, the 
same, or nearly the same, phenomena may be observed. 
The Psalmist says (xvii. 6), ‘In my distress I called 
upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my 


1 Welcker, p. 169. 

2 “Bunsen, Gott in der Geschichte, ii. 352: ‘ Gott vermag aus schwar- 
zer Nacht zu erwecken fleckenlosen Glanz, und mit schwarzlockigem 
Dunkel zu verhiillen des Tages reinen Strahl.’—Pindar, Fragm. 3. 


JUPITER. 559 


voice out of his temple, and my ery came before him, 
even into his ears.’ 


7. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also 
of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. 

8. There went up smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of 
his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. . 

9. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and dark- 
ness was under his feet. 

10. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did 
fly upon the wings of the wind. 

13. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest 
gave his voice; hailstones and coals of fire. 

14, Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and 
he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them. 

15. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the founda- 
tions of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at 
the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. 


Even the Psalmist in his inspired utterances must 
use our helpless human language, and condescend to 
the level of human thought. Well is it for us if we 
always remember the difference between what is said 
and what is meant, and if, while we pity the heathen 
for worshipping stocks and stones, we are not our- 
selves kneeling down before the frail images of human 
fancy.t 


Was Dyaus the result of Radical or Poetical Metaphor? 


And now, before we leave the history of Dyu, we 
must ask one more question, though one which it is 
dificult to answer. Was it by the process of radical 
or poetical metaphor that the ancient Aryans, before 
they separated, spoke of dyu, the sky, and dyu, the 


* Dion Chrysostomus, 12,.p. 404. Welcker, Griechische Gétterlehre, 
i, p. 246, ar 


5€0 CHAPTER XI. 


god? i.e. was the object of the sensus luminis, the 
sky, called dyu, light, and the object of the sensus 
numinis, God, called dyu, light, by two independent 
acts; or was the name of the sky, dyu, transferred 
ready-made to express the growing idea of God, living 
in the highest heaven?! Either is possible. The latter 
view could be supported by several analogies, which 
we examined before, and where we found that names 
expressive of sky had clearly been transferred to the 
idea of the Godhead, or, as others would put it, had 
gradually been purified and sublimised to express 
that idea. There is no reason why this should not 
be admitted. Hach name is in the beginning im- 
perfect, it necessarily expresses but one side of its 
object, and in the case of the names of God the very 
fact of the insufficiency of one single name would 
lead to the creation or adoption of new names, each 
expressive of a new quality that was felt to be 
essential and useful for recalling new phenomena in 
which the presence of the Deity had been discovered. 
The unseen and incomprehensible Being that had to 
be named was perceived in the wind, in the earth- 
quake, and in the fire, long before it was recognised 
in the still small voice within. From every one of 
these manifestations the divine secretum illud quod 
sold reverentia vident might receive a name, and as 
long as each of these names was felt to be but a name, 
no harm was done. But names have a tendency to 

1 Festus, p. 32: ‘ Lucetium Jovem appellabant quod eum lucis esse 
causam credebant.’ Macrob. Sat. i. 15: ‘unde et Lucetium Salii in 
carmine canunt, et Cretenses Aia Tv fuépay vocant, ipsi quoque Romani 


Diespitrem appellant, ut diei patrem. Gell, v. 12,6. Hartung, Religion 
der Romer, ii. 9. 


JUPITER. 561 


become things, nomina grew into numina, ideas into 
idols, and if this happened with the name Dyu, no 
wonder that many things which were intended for 
Him who is above the sky were mixed up with 
sayings relating to the sky. 

Much, however, may be said in favour of the other | 
view. We may explain the synonymousness of sky 
and God in the Aryan languages by the process of 
radical metaphor. Those who believe that all our 
ideas had their first roots in the impressions of the 
senses, and that nothing original came from any other 
source, would naturally adopt the former view, though 
they would on reflection find it difficult to explain how 
the sensuous impressions left by the blue sky, or the 
clouds, or the thunder and lightning, should ever have 
yielded an essence distinct from all these fleeting 
phenomena—how the senses by themselves should, 
like Juno in her anger, have given birth to a being 
such as had never been seen before. It may sound 
like mysticism, but it is nevertheless perfectly rational 
to suppose that there was in the beginning the per- 
ception of what Tacitus calls secretwm dlud, and that 
this secret and sacred thing was at the first burst of 
utterance called Dyu, the light, without any special 
reference to the bright sky. Afterwards, the bright 
sky being called for another reason Dyu, the light, 
the mythological process would be equally intelligible 
that led to all the contradictions in the fables of Zeus. 
The two words dyu, the inward light, and dyu, 
the sky, became, like a double star, one, defying 
the vision and division even of the most power- 
ful lenses. Whenever the word was pronounced, 

II, 00 


562 CHAPTER XI, 


all its meanings, light, god, sky, and day, vibrated 
together, and the bright Dyu, the god of light, was 
lost in the Dyu of the sky. If Dyu meant originally 
the bright Being, the light, the god of light, and was 
intended, like asura, as a name for the Divine, unlo- 
calised as yet in any part of nature, we shall appreciate 
all the more easily its applicability to express, in spite 
of ever-shifting circumstances, the highest and the 
universal God. Thus, in Greek, Zeus is not only the 
lord of heaven, but likewise the ruler of the lower 
world, and the master of the sea.!_ But though recog- 
nising in the name of Zeus the original conception of 
light, we ought not to deceive ourselves and try to find 
in the primitive vocabulary of the Aryans those sub- 
lime meanings which after many thousands of years 
their words have assumed in our languages. The hight 
which flashed up for the first time before the inmost 
vision of their souls, was not the pure light of which 
St. John speaks. We must not mix the words and 
thoughts of different ages. Though the message 
which St. John sent to his little children, ‘God is 
light, and in him is no darkness at all, 2 may remind 
us of something similar in the primitive annals of 
human language; though we may highly value the 
coincidence, such as it is, between the first stammer- 
ings of religious life and the matured language of 
the world’s manhood; yet it behoves us, while we 
compare, to discriminate likewise, and to remember 


1 Welcker, Griechische Giotterlehre, i. p. 164. II. ix. 457, Zevs re 
xaTax@ovios. The Old Norse tyr is likewise used in this general sense. 
See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 178. 

2 St. John, Ep. 1. i. 5 ; ii. 7, 


JUPITER. 5638 


always that words and phrases, though outwardly the 
same, reflect the intentions of the speaker at ever- 
varying angles. 

It was not my intention to enter at full length 
into the story of Zeus as told by the Greeks, or the 
story of Jupiter as told by the Romans. This has 
been done, and well done, in books on Greek and 
Roman Mythology. All I wished to do was to lay 
bare before your eyes the first germs of Zeus and 
Jupiter which lie below the surface of classical my- 
thology, and to show how those germs cling with their 
fibres to roots that stretch in an uninterrupted line to 
India—nay, to some more distant centre from which 
all the Aryan languages proceeded in their world-wide 
expansion. 


The Root Dyu. 


It may be useful, however, to dwell a little longer 
on the curious conglomeration of words which have 
all been derived from the same root as Zeus. That 
root in its simplest form is DY U. 


DYU, raised by Guna to DYO (before vowels 

dyav); 

raised by Vriddhi to DY AU (before vowels 

dyav). 

DYU, by a change of vowels into semi-vowels, and 
of semi-vowels into vowels, assumes the form of 
DIV, and this is raised by Guna to DEV, 
by Vriddhi to DAIV. 


I shall now examine these roots and their deriva- 
tives more in detail, and, in doing so, I shall put 
002 


564 CHAPTER XI. 


together those words, whether verbal or nominal, 
which agree most closely in their form, without refer- 
ence to the usual arrangements of declension and 
conjugation adopted by practical grammarians. 

The root dyu in its simplest form appears as the 
Sanskrit verb dyu, to spring or pounce on some- 
thing." In some passages of the Rigveda, the 
commentator takes dyu in the sense of shining, but 
he likewise admits that the verbal root may be dyut, 
not dyu. Thus, Rigveda, i. 118, 14: ‘The Dawn 
with her jewels shone forth (adyaut) in all the 
corners of the sky; she the bright (devi) opened 
the dark cloth (the night). She who awakens us 
comes near, Ushas with her red_ horses, on her 
swift car.’ 

If dyu is to be used for nominal, instead of verbal 
purposes, we have only to add the terminations of 
declension. Thus we get with bhis, the termination 
of the instrumental plural, corresponding to Latin bus, 
dyu-bhis, meaning on all days, toujowrs; or the ace. 
plural dyin, in anu dyfn, day after day. 

If dyu is to be used as an adverb, we have only 
to add the adverbial termination s, and we get the 
Sanskrit dyu-s in ptirvedyus, i.e. on a former 
day, yesterday, which has been compared with proizd, 
the day before yesterday. The last element, za, cer- 
tainly seems to contain the root dyu (cf. xOu-Gds, i. e. 
X9-d10s) ; but za would correspond to Sanskrit dya 
(as in adya, to-day), rather than to dyus. This 
dyus, however, standing for an original dyut, ap- 


* The French éclater, originally to break forth, afterwards to shine, 
shows a similar transition. Cf. Diez, Lex. Comp. s. v. ‘schiantare.’ 


JUPITER. ~ 565 


pears again in Latin did, by day, as in nocti ditique, 
by night and by day. Afterwards didi! came to 
mean a lifelong day, a long while, and then in dius- 
cule, a little while, the s reappears. This s stands 
for an older ¢, and this ¢, too, reappears in diutule, a 
httle while, and in the comparative diut-ius, longer 
(enterdius and interdit, by day). 

In Greek and Latin, words beginning with dy are 
impossible. Where Sanskrit shows an initial dy, 
we find in Greek that either dy is changed to z, or 
the y is dropped altogether, leaving simply d.? 
Even in Greek we find that dialects vary between 
dia and za; we find Aolic? zabdllo, instead of dia- 
bdllo, and the later Byzantine corruption of didbolus 
appears in Latin as zabulus, instead of diabolus. 
Where, in Greek, initial z varies dialectically with 
initial d, we shall find generally that the original 
initial consonants were dy. If, therefore, we meet 
in Greek with two such forms as Zeus and Boeotian 
Dets, we may be certain that both correspond to the 
Sanskrit Dyu, raised by Guna to Dyo. This form, 
dyo, exists in Sanskrit, not in the nominative sin- 
gular, which by Vrzddhi is raised to Dyaus, nom. 
plur. DyA4vah, but in such forms as the locative 
dyavi* (for dyo-i), &c. 

1 In dum, this day, then, while ; in nondwm, not yet (pas encore, i.e. 
hanc horam) ; in donicum, donec, now that, lorsque ; and in denique,i.e. 
and now, lastly, the same radical element dyu, in the sense of day, has 
been suspected ; likewise in bidwum. In Greek 6nv (Aleman uses doar, 
i.e. &:Fav), long, 67, now, have been referred to the same source. 

2 See Schleicher, Zur Vergleichenden Sprachengeschichte, p. 40. 

3 Mehlhorn, Griechische Grammatik, § 110. 


* The acc. singular dydm, besides divam, is a mere corruption of 
dydvam, like gdm for ga4vam. The coincidence of dydm with the Greek 


566 CHAPTER XI. 


In Latin, initial dy is represented by 7; so that 
J% in Jupiter corresponds exactly with Sanskrit Dyo. 
Jovis, on the contrary, is a secondary form, and 
would in the nominative singular represent a San- 
skrit form Dyavih. Traces of the former existence 
of an initial dj in Latin have been discovered in 
Diovis, according to Varro (£. L. v. 10, 20), an old 
Italian name for Jupiter, that has been met with 
under the same form in Osean inscriptions. Véévis, 
too, an old Italian divinity, is sometimes found spelt 
Véedidvis, dat. Vediovr, ace. Vediovem. 

That the Greek Zen, Zénos, belongs to the same 
family of words, has never been doubted; but there 
has been great diversity of opinion as to the etymo- 
logical structure of the word. I explain Zén, as well 
as Latin Jan, the older form of Janus, as representing 
a Sanskrit dyav-an, formed like Pan, from the root 
pt, raised to pavan.! Now as yuvan, jtivenis, is 
contracted to yun in gunior, so dyavan would in Latin 
become Jan, following the third declension,? or, under 
a secondary form, Jan-us. Janus-pater,in Latin, was 
used as one word, like Jupiter. He was likewise 
called Junonius and Quirinus,® and was, as far as we 
can judge, another personification of Dyu, the sky, 
with special reference, however, to morning, the be- 
ace. sing. Zjy is curious. Cf. Leo Meyer, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, v. 373. 
Zevy also is mentioned as an accusative singular. As to nominatives, 
such as Zs and Zds, gen. Zavrés, they are too little authenticated to 
warrant any conjectures as to their etymological character. See Curtius, 
Grundziige, ii. p. 188. 

* Tertullian, Apol. c. 10: ‘a Jano vel Jane, ut Salii volunt.’ Har- 
tung, Religion der Romer, ii. 218, Cf. Kuhn, Zeitschrift, vii. p. 80. 


2 See Chips, ii. 162. 
= .Gell evs 2: 


JUPITER. 567 


ginning of the day (Janus matutinus), and later to 
the spring, the beginning of the year. The month 
of January owes its name to him. NowasJu: Zeu= 
Jan : Zen, only that in Greek Zén remained in the 
third or consonantal declension, instead of migrating, — 
as it might have done, under the form Zénos, ow, into 
the second. The Latin Jin-6, Jun-on-is, would cor- 
respond to a Greek Zénédn, as a feminine. 

The second form, DIV, appears in Sanskrit in the 
oblique cases, gen. divas, dat. dive, inst. divd, ace. 
divam, &c. For instance (Rv. i. 50, 11), ‘O Sun, 
that risest now, and mountest up to the higher sky 
(attaram divam, fem.), destroy the pain of my 
heart and my paleness !’ 

Ry. i. 54, 3: ‘Sing to the mighty Dyu (divé bra- 
haté, mase.) a mighty song.’ 

Ry. i. 7, 3: ‘Indra made the sun rise to the sky 
(divi), that he might see far and wide; he burst 
open the rock for the cows.’ 

These forms are most accurately represented in the 
Greek oblique case, Difdés, DiFt, DiFa. 

In Latin the labial semi-vowel, the so-called di- 
gamma, ought not to be dropt. It is preserved in 
Jovis, Jovem, in livinus, &e., and it is difficult to say 
why it should have dropt in Diespiter, and likewise 
in dium for divum, sky, from which Didna, instead 
of Divdna, the heavenly (originally Deiana). 

In Sanskrit there are several derivatives of div, 
such as diva (neuter), sky, or day; divasa (m. n.), 
sky and day; divya, heavenly; dina (m. n.), day, 
according to Benfey, stands for divana. In Litu- 
anian we find diena. The Latin duwm in biduwm 


568 CHAPTER XI. 


and tridwum, is the same as Sanskrit divam, while 
diés would correspond to a Sanskrit divas, nom. sing. 
divas, masc. Dinw in nundine corresponds to 
dina. 

If, lastly, we raise div by Guna, we get the San- 
skrit deva, originally bright, afterwards god. It is 
curious that this, the etymological meaning of deva, 
is passed over in the Dictionary of Boehtlingk and 
Roth. It is clearly passed over intentionally, and 
in order to show that in all the passages where deva 
occurs in the Veda it may be translated by god or 
divine. That it may beso translated would be difficult 
to disprove ; but that there are many passages where 
the original meaning of bright is more appropriate, 
can easily be established. Rv. i. 50, 8: ‘The seven 
Harits (horses) carry thee on thy chariot, brilliant 
(deva) Sun, thee with flaming hair, O far-seeing!’ 
No doubt we might translate the divine Sun; but the 
explanation of the commentator in this and similar 
passages seems more natural and more appropriate. 
What is most interesting in the Veda is exactly this 
uncertainty of meaning, the half-physical and half- 
spiritual intention of words such as deva. In Latin 
deus no longer means brilliant, but simply god. 
The same applies to diewas in Lituanian, and to 
Jeds in Greek, whether it comes from the same source 
or not. 

In Sanskrit we can still watch the formation of 
the general name for deity. The principal objects of 
the religious poetry of the Vedic bards were those 
bright beings, the Sun, the Sky, the Day, the Dawn, 
the Morn, the Spring—who might all be called deva, 


JUPITER. | 569 


brilliant. These were soon opposed to the powers of 
night and darkness, sometimes called adeva, lite- 
rally, not bright, then ungodly, evil, mischievous. 
This contrast between the bright, beneficent, divine, 
and the dark, mischievous, demoniacal beings, is of 
very ancient date. Druh,! mischief, is used as a 
name of darkness or the night, and the Dawn is said 
to drive away the hateful darkness of Druh (vii. 75, 
Ie see also. 48/85 48/15" 92,5 5113;.12). sathe 
Adityas are praised for preserving man from Druh 
(vili. 47, 1), and Maghavan or Indra is implored 
to bestow on his worshippers the light of day, after 
having driven away the many ungodly Druhs (ii. 
31, 19: druhdh vi yahi bahulaéh dadevth). 
‘May he fall into the snares of Druh,’ is used as 
a curse (vii. 59, 8); and in another passage we read, 
‘The Druhs follow the sins of men’ (vii. 61, 5). 
As the ghastly powers of darkness, the Druh or 
the Rakshas, are called adeva, so the bright gods 
are called adruh (vii. 66, 18, Mitra and Varu7a). 
Deva being thus applied to all the bright and bene- 
ficent manifestations in which the Aryans discovered 
the presence of something supernatural, undecaying, 
immortal, it became in time the general name for 
what was shared in common by all the different 
gods or names of God. It followed, like a shadow, 
the growth of the purer idea of the Godhead, and 
when that had reached its highest goal it was almost 
1 See Kuhn, Zeitschrift, i.179 and 193, where 0€Ay, TeAxiv, aT pexns, 
Zend Drukhs, German triigen and liigen, are all, with more or less cer- 
tainty, traced back todruh. In A.S. we find dreoh-lécan, magicians ; 


dry, magician (derived by some from the Celtic dryis, a Druid, a magi- 
cian). 


570 CHAPTER XI, 


the only word which had retained some vitality in 
that pure but exhausting atmosphere of thought. 
The Adityas, the Vasus, the Asuras, and other 
names, had fallen back in the onward race of the 
human mind towards the highest conception of the 
Divine; the Devas alone remained to express deus, 
God. Even in the Veda, where these glimpses of 
the original meaning of deva, brilliant, can still be 
caught, deva is likewise used in the same sense in 
which the Greeks used theds, The poet (x. 121, 8) 
speaks of 

Him who among the gods was alone god. 

Yah deveshu adhi devah ekah Asit. 

A last step brings us in Sanskrit to Daiva, de- 
rived from deva, and this is used in the later Sans- 
krit to express fate, destiny. 

There is but little to be said about the correspond- 
ing words in the Teutonic branch, fragments of which 
have been collected by that thoughtful scholar, Jacob 
Grimm.’ In name the Eddie god Tor (gen. THs, ace. 
7’) answers to the Vedic Dyu, and the Old Norse 
name for dies Martis is Tisdagr. Although in the 
system of the Edda Odhin is the supreme god, and 
I'jr his son, traces remain to show that in former 
days Tr, the god of war, was worshipped as the 
principal deity by the Germans. In Anglo-Saxon 
the name of the god does no longer occur indepen- 
dently, but traces of it have been discovered in 
Liwesdeg, Tuesday. The same applies to Old High- 
German, where we find Ziestac for the modern Dien- 


* Deutsche Mythologie, p. 175. 
* Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 179. 


JUPITER. 571 


stag. Kemble points out names of places in Eng- 
land, such as Tewesley, Tewing, Tiwes mére, and Tewes 
thorn, and names of flowers,! such as the Old Norse 
Tosfiola, Tirhjalm, Tosvithr, as containing the name 
of the god. 

Besides this proper name, Grimm has likewise 
pointed out the Eddie tivar, nom. plur., the gods. 

Lastly, whatever may have been said against it, I 
think that Zeuss and Grimm were right in connecting 
the Tuisco mentioned by Tacitus with the Anglo- 
Saxon Jiw, which, in Gothic, would have sounded 
Tiw2 The Germans were considered by Tacitus, and 
probably considered themselves, as the aboriginal in- 
habitants of their country. In their poems, which 
Tacitus calls their only kind of tradition and annals, 
they celebrated as the divine ancestors of their race, 
Tuisco, sprung from the Earth, and his son Mannus. 
They looked, therefore, like the Greeks, on the gods 
as the ancestors of the human family, and they be- 
lieved that in the beginning life sprang from that 
inexhaustible soil which gives support and nourish- 
ment to man, and for which in their simple language 
they could find no truer name than Mother Earth. 
It is easy to see that the Mannus here spoken of 
by Tacitus as the son of J'uisco, meant originally 
man, and was derived from the same root man, to 
measure, to think, which in Sanskrit yielded Manu.’ 


1 Kemble, Saxons in England, i. p. 351, These had first been 
pointed out by Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 180. 

2 See Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungs-Geschichte, 2nd ed. vol. i. 1865. 

3 On Manu and Minos, see Kuhn, Zeitschrift, iv. 92. The name 
of Saryata, the son of Manu, could hardly be compared with Kréta. 
Professor Kern, in his paper on Tuiscoen Mannus, takes Tuisco for the 
twilight, Mannu for the morning light. 


572 CHAPTER XI. 


Man, or, in Sanskrit, Manu, or Manus, was the 
proudest name which man could give to himself, the 
Measurer, the Thinker, and from it was derived the 
Old High-German mennise, the Modern German 
Mensch. This mennise, like the Sanskrit manu shya, 
was originally an adjective, a patronymic, if you 
like: it meant the son of man. As soon as mennise 
and manushya became in common parlance the 
recognised words for man, language itself supplied 
the myth, that Manus was the ancestor of the 
Manushyas. Now Tuisco seems but a secondary 
form of Tiw, followed by the same suffix which we 
saw in mennisc, and without any change of meaning. 
Then why was T'wisco called the father of Manny? 
Simply because it was one of the first articles in the 
primitive faith of mankind, that in one sense or other 
they had a father in heaven. Hence Mannu was 
called the son of Z'wisco, and this Tuisco, aS we 
know, was, originally, the Aryan god of light. These 
things formed the burden of German songs to which 
Tacitus listened. These songs they sang before they 
went to battle, to stimulate their courage, and to pre- 
pare to die. To an Italian ear it must have been a 
wild sound, reverberated from their shields, and hence 
called barditus (shield-song, Old Norse bardhi, shield), 
Many a Roman would have sneered at such poetry 
and such music. Not so Tacitus. The emperor 
Julian,' when he heard the Germans singing their 


* "Edeacdpnv row Kal rods irép rov ‘Phvov BapBapous dypia pédn rA€Ee 
TETONMEVA TApATANTLA Tois KpwypLois TOY Tpaxd BowvTwy pvidwr ddovras 

kal evppavopévous év tois péAcow. Misopogon, vol. i. p. 337, ed. 
| Leipzig, 1696. 


JUPITER. 573 


songs on the borders of the Rhine, could compare 
them to nothing but the shrill cries of birds. Tacitus 
calls them a shout of valour (concentus virtutis). He 
likewise mentions (Ann. ii. 88) that the Germans still 
kept up the memory of Arminius in their songs, and 
he describes (Ann. ii. 65) their night revellings, where 
they sang and shouted till the morning called them 
to fresh battles. 

The names which Tacitus mentions, such as Man- 
nus, Tuisco, &c., he could of course repeat by ear 
only; and if one considers the difficulties of such a 
task, it is extraordinary that these names, as written 
down by him, should lend themselves so easily to 
etymological explanation. Thus Tacitus states not 
only that Mannus was the ancestor of the German 
race, but he likewise mentions the names of his three 
sons, or rather the names of the three great tribes, 
the Ingavones, Iscceevones, and Herminones, who de- 
rived their origin from the three sons of Mannus. It 
has been shown that the Ingcvones derive their name 
from Yng, Yngo, or Ynguio, who in the Edda and in 
the Beowulf is mentioned as living first with the 
Eastern Danes and then proceeding on his car east- 
ward over the sea. There is a northern race, the 
Ynglings, and their pedigree begins with Yngvi, 
Niordr, Frayr, Fidlnir (Odin), Svegdir, all names of 
divine beings. Another genealogy, given in the Yng- 
linga-saga, begins with Nidrd7, identifies Frayer with 
Yngvi, and derives from him the name of the race. 

The second son of Mannus, Jsco, has. been identified 
by Grimm with Askr, another name of the first-born 
man. <Askr means ash-tree, and it has been supposed 


574 CHAPTER XI. 


that the name ash thus given to the first man came 
from the same conception which led the Greeks to 
imagine that one of the races of man sprang from 
ash-trees (ék weAvav). Alcuin still uses the expression, 
son of the ash-tree, as synonymous with man.! 
Grimm supposes that the Isceevones lived near the 
Rhine, and that a trace of their name comes out in 
Asciburgium or Asciburg, on the Rhine, where, as 
Tacitus had been wildly informed, an altar had been 
discovered dedicated to Ulysses, and with the name of 
his father Laértes.? 

The third son of Mannus, Irmino, has a name de- 
cidedly German. Jrmin was an old Saxon god, from 
whom probably both Arminius and the Herminones 
derived their names. 

The chief interest of these German fables about 
Tuisco, Mannus, and his sons, is their religious cha- 
racter. They give utterance to the same sentiment 
which we find again and again among the Aryan 
nations, that man is conscious of his descent from 
heaven and from earth, that he claims kindred with 
a father in heaven, though he recognises with equal 
clearness that he is made of the dust of the earth. 
The Hindus knew it when they called Dyu their 
father, and Pr¢thivi their mother; Plato? knew it 
when he said that the Earth, as the mother, brought 
forth men, but God was the shaper; Lucretius knew 
it when he wrote (11. 991-95) : | 


1 Ampere, Histoire litteraire de la France, iii. 79. 

2 Germania, c. 3. 

> Polit, p. 414: aly yA avrods untnp odaa avnke—GAN 6 Oeds TAATTHY. 
Welcker, Griechische Gitterlehre, i. p. 182. See also J. Muir, Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xxiii. part 8, p. 552, note. 


JUPITER. 575 


Denique ccelesti sumus omnes semine oriundi; 
Omnibus ille idem pater est, unde alma liquentis 
Umoris guttas mater cum terra recepit, 

Feta parit nitidas fruges arbustaque leta 

Kt genus humanum, parit omnia secla ferarum ; 4 


and the Germans knew it, though Tacitus tells us— 
confusedly that they sang of Mannus as the son of 
Lursco, and of Twisco as sprung from the earth. This 
is what Grimm says of the religious elements hidden 
in German mythology :? 


In our own heathen mythology ideas which the human heart 
requires before all others, and in which it finds its chief support, 
stand forth in bold and pure relief. The highest god is there 
a father, old-father, grandfather, who grants to the living bless- 
ing and victory, to the dying a welcome in his own mansions. 
Death is called ‘going home,’ Heimgang, return to our father. 
By the side of the god stands the highest goddess as mother, 
old-mother, grandmother, a wise and pure ancestress of the 
human race. The god is majestic, the goddess beaming with 
beauty. Both hold their circuit on earth and are seen among 
men, he teaching war and weapons, she sewing, spinning, and 
weaving. He inspires the poem, she cherishes the tale. 


Let me conclude with the eloquent words of my 
friend, Charles Kingsley : 3 


Then they looked round upon the earth, those simple-hearted 
forefathers of ours, and said within themselves, ‘Where is the 
All-Father, if All-Father there be ? Not in this earth ; for it 
will perish. Nor inthe sun, moon, or stars ; for they will perish 
too. Where is He who abideth forever?’ Then they lifted up 


* See Sellar, The Roman Poets of the Republic, p. 276: «In fine, we 
are all born of the seed of heaven; that heaven is the common father 
of all, from which our bounteous mother earth receives the liquid drops 
of rain, and, conceiving, bears fair fruits and luxuriant groves, and the 
race of man, and all the generations of wild beasts.’ 

? Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, xl. 1. 

* © Kingsley, The Good News of God, 1859, p. 241. 


576 CHAPTER XI. 


their eyes, and saw, as they thought, beyond sun, and moon, 
and stars, and all which changes and will change, the clear blue 
sky, the boundless firmament of heaven. 

That never changed; that was always thesame. The clouds 
and storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy 
world; but there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. 
The All-Father must be there, unchangeable in the unchanging 
heaven; bright, and pure, and boundless like the heavens; and 
like the heavens, too, silent and far off. 

So they named him after the heaven, Tuisco—the God who 
lives in the clear heaven, the heavenly Father. He was the 
Father of gods and men; and man was the son of Tuisco and 
Hertha—heaven and earth. 


CHAPTER XII. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 


FTER having gathered the fragments of the most 
ancient and most exalted deity Dyaus, Zeus, 
Jupiter, Tyr, worshipped once by all the members of 
the Aryan stock, we have now to examine some of the 
minor deities, in order to find out whether they too 
can be referred to the earliest period of Aryan speech 
and Aryan thought—whether they too existed before 
the Aryans broke up in search of new homes; and 
whether their memory was preserved more or less 
distinctly in later days in the poems of Homer and 
the songs of the Veda, These researches must 
necessarily be of a more minute character, and I 
shall have to enter into details which are of little 
general interest, but which, nevertheless, are indis- 
pensable, in order to establish a safe basis for specu- 
lations, very apt to mislead even the most cautious 

inquirer. 

Sarama and Helena. 


I begin with the myth of Hermes, whose name has 
been traced back to the Vedic Sarama. My learned 
friend Professor Kuhn,! who was the first to analyse 


? In Haupt’s Zeitschrift Sir Deutsches Alterthum, vi. p. 119 seq. 
IT; Pep 


578 CHAPTER XII. 


the meaning and character of Saraméa, arrived at 
the conclusion that Sarama& meant storm, and that 
the Sanskrit word was identical with the Teutonic 
word storm, and with the Greek hormé2. No doubt 
the root of Sarama is sar, to go, but its derivation 
is by no means clear, there being no other word in 
Sanskrit formed by ama, and with gua of the 
radical vowel. But admitting that Sarama meant 
originally the runner, how does it follow that the 
runner was meant for storm? It is true that 
Saranyu, mase., derived from the same root, is said 
to take in later Sanskrit the meaning of wind and 
cloud, but it has never been proved that Saranyt, 
fem., had these meanings. The wind, whether as 
vata, vayu, marut, pavana, anila, &c., is always 
conceived as a masculine in Sanskrit, and the same 
applies generally to the other Aryan languages. 
This, however, would be no insurmountable objec- 
tion, if there were clear traces in the Veda of 
SaramA being endowed with any of the character- 
istic qualities of the wind. But if we compare the 
passages in which she is mentioned with others in 
which the power of the storm is described, we find 
no similarity whatever. It is said of Sarama that 
she espied the strong stable of the cows (i. 72, 8), 
that she discovered the cleft of the rock, that she 
went a long journey, that she was the first to hear 
the lowing of the cows, and perhaps that she led the 
cows out (iii. 31, 6). She did this at the instance of 


1 See Unadi-Stitras, ed. Aufrecht, iv. 48. Sadrmah, as a substan- 
tive, running, occurs Ry. i. 80,5. The Greek épuy corresponds with 
this word in the feminine, but not with sarama. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 579 


Indra and the Angirasg (i. 62, 3); Brihaspati (i. 
62, 3) or Indra (iv. 16,8) split the rock, and recovered 
the cows, which cows are said to give food to the 
children of man (i. 62, 8; 72, 8); perhaps, to the 
offspring of Sarama herself (i. 62, 38). Sarama. 
appears in time before Indra (iv. 16, 8), and she 
walks on the right path (iv. 45, 7 and 8). 

This is about all that can be learnt from the Rig- 
veda as to the character of SaramA, with the ex- 
ception of a hymn in the last book, which contains 
a dialogue between her and the Panis, who had 
robbed the cows. The following is a translation of 
that hymn :— 


The Panis said: ‘With what purpose did Sarama reach 
this place! for the way is far, and leads tortuously away. 
What was your wish with us? How was the night?! How 
did you cross the waters of the Rasa?’ (1.) 

Sarama said: ‘I come, sent as the messenger of Indra, 
desiring, O Panis, your great treasures; this preserved me 
from the fear of crossing, and thus I crossed the waters of the 
Rasa.’ (2.) 

The Panis: ‘What kind of man is Indra, O Sarama? 
What is his look, he as whose messenger thou camest from afar ? 
Let him come hither, and we will make friends with him, and 
then he may be the cowherd of our cows.’ (3.) 

Sarama: ‘I do not know that he is to be subdued, for it 
is he himself that subdues, he as whose messenger I came 
hither from afar. Deep streams do not overwhelm him; you, 
Panis, will lie prostrate, killed by Indra,’ (4.) 

The Panis: ‘These are the cows, O Sarama, which thou 
desiredst, flying about the ends of the sky, O darling. Who 


* Paritakmya is explained in the Dictionary of Boehtlingk and 
Roth in the sense of random travelling. It never has that sense in the 
Veda, and as Sarama comes to the Panis in the morning, the ques- 
tion, how was the night, is perfectly natural. 


Pp2 


580 CHAPTER XII. ~ 


would give them up to thee without fighting ? for our weapons 
too are sharp.’ (5.) 

Sarama: ‘Though your words, O Pamis, be unconquerable,' 
though your wretched bodies be arrowproof,’ though the way 
to you be hard to go, Brihaspati will not bless you for 
either.’ * (6.) 

The Panis: ‘That store, O SaramA, is fastened to the rock ; 
furnished with cows, horses, and treasures. Panis watch it 
who are good watchers; thou art come in vain to this bright 
place.’ (7.) 

Sarama: ‘Let only the Rishis come here, fired with Soma, 
Ayasya (Indra *) and the ninefold Angiras; they will divide 
this stable® of cows; then the Pamis will vomit out this 
speech.’ ® (8.) 

The Panis: ‘Art thou, O Saram4, come hither, driven by 
the violence of the Gods? Let us make thee our sister, do 
not go away again; we will give thee part of the cows, O 
darling.’ (9.) 

Sarama: ‘I know nothing of brotherhood or sisterhood ; 
Indra knows it and the awful Angiras. They seemed to me 
anxious for their cows when I came; therefore get away from 
here, O Panis, far away." (10.) 

‘Go far away, Panis, far away; let the cows come out 
straight ; the cows which Brihaspati found hid away, Soma, 
the stones, and the wise Rishis.’* (11.) 


In none of these verses is there the slightest indi- 
cation of Sarama as the representative of the storm, 
nor do the explanations of Indian commentators, which 
have next to be considered, point at all in that direction. 


asenyda, not hurtful, B. R. 

anishavy4, not to be destroyed, B. R. 

Ubhay a, with the accent on the last syllable, is doubtful. 

Cf. 1263, 7; and BAR. ay. 

tirva is called drilha, Rv. i. 72, 8. 

‘Will be sorry for their former speech.’ 

variyah, in das Weite. 

See Aufrecht in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlindischen Gesell- 
. schaft, xili. 493 ; xiv. 583. 


CO se) eam ce Te 6o. bb 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 581 


Sayana, in his commentary on the Rigveda (i. 
6,5), tells the story of Saramaé most simply. The 
cows, he says, were carried off by the Panis from 
the world of the gods and thrown into darkness ; 
Indra, together with the Maruts, or storms, con- 
quered them. 7 

In the Anukramanika, the index to the Rig- 
veda-Sanhita (x. 103), the story is related in fallen 
detail. It is there said that the cows were hidden 
by the demons, the Panis; that Indra sent the 
dog of the gods, Sarama, to look for the cows; and 
that a parley took place between her and the Panis, 
which forms the 108th hymn of the last book of the 
Rigveda. 

Further additions to the story are to be found in 
Sayana’s Commentary on ii. 31,5. The cows are 
there called the property of the Angiras, and it was 
at their instance that Indra sent the dog, and then, 
being apprised of their hiding-place, brought them 
back to the Angiras. So, at least, says the commen- 
tator, while the text of the hymn represents the seven 
sages, the Angiras, as taking themselves a more 
active part in effecting the breach in the mountain. 
Again, in his commentary on Rv. x. 108, SAyana 
adds that the cows belonged to Brihaspati, the 
chief-priest of Indra, that they were stolen by the 
Pamnis, the people of Vala, and that Indra, at Br7- 
haspati’s instance, sent the dog Sarama. The dog, 
after crossing a river, came to the town of Vala, and 
saw the cows in a secret place ; whereupon the Panis 
tried to coax her to stay with them. 

As we read the hymn in the text of the Rigveda, 


582 CHAPTER XII. 


the parley between Saramé and the Panis would 
seem to have ended with Sarama warning the robbers 
to flee before the wrath of Indra, Brzhaspati, and 
the Angiras. But in the Brihaddevata a new 
trait is added. It is there said that although 
Sarama declined to divide the booty with the 
Panis, she asked them for a drink of milk. After 
having drunk the milk, she recrossed the Rasa, and 
when she was asked after the cows by Indra, she 
denied having seen them. Indra thereupon kicked 
her with his foot, and she vomited the milk, and ran 
back to the Panis. Indra then followed her, killed 
the demons, and recovered the cows. 

This faithlessness of Sarama is not alluded to in 
the hymn; and in another passage, where it is said 
that Sarama found food for her offspring (Rv. i. 62, 3), 
Sayana merely states that Sarama, before going to 
look for the cows, made a bargain with Indra that 
her young should receive milk and other food, and 
then proceeded on her journey. 

This being nearly the whole evidence on which we 
must form our opinion of the original conception of 
Sarama, there can be little doubt that she was meant 
for the early dawn, and not for the storm.’ In the 
ancient hymns of the Rigveda she is never spoken of 
as a dog, nor can we find there the slightest allusion 
to her canine nature. This is evidently a later 
thought,? and it is high time that this much-talked-of 


1 In Banffshire the dog-afore-his-maister is the roll or swell of the sea 
that often precedesa storm, The dog-ahin’s-maister, the swell after the 
storm has ceased. W. Gregor, The Dialect of Banffshire, 1866. 

? It probably arose from Saraméya being used as a name or epithet 
of the dogs of Yama. See page 592. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 583 


greyhound should be driven out of the Vedic Pan- 
theon. There are but few epithets of Sarama from 
which we might form a guess as to her character. 
She is called supadi, having good feet, or quick, an 
adjective which never occurs again in the Rigveda. 
The second epithet, however, which is applied to her, - 
subhaga, fortunate, beloved, is one she shares in com- 
mon with the Dawn; nay, which is almost a stereo- 
typed epithet of the Dawn. 

But more than this. Of whom is it so constantly 
said, as of Sarama, that she appears before Indra, 
that Indra follows her? It is Ushas, the Dawn, 
who wakes first (i. 123, 2); who comes first to the 
morning prayer (i. 123, 2). The Sun follows behind, 
as a man follows a woman (Rv. i. 115, 2). Of whom 
is it said, as of SaramA, that she brings to light the 
precious things hidden in darkness? It is Ushas, 
the Dawn, who reveals the bright treasures that were 
covered by the gloom (i. 123, 6). She crosses the 
water unhurt (vi. 64,4); she lays open the ends of 
heaven (i. 92, 11); those very ends where, as the 
Panis said, the cows were to be found. She is said 
to break the strongholds and bring back the cows 
(vii. 75,7; 79, 4). It is she who, like Sarama, dis- 
tributes wealth among the sons of men (i. 92, 3; 123, 
3). She possesses the cows (i. 128, 12, &c.); she 1s 
even called the mother of the cows (iv. 52,2). She 
is said to produce the cows and to bring light (1. 124, 
5); she is asked to open the doors of heaven, and to 
bestow on man wealth of cows (i. 48. 15). The 


1 Comparative Mythology, p.57. Oaford Essays, 1856. Chips from 
a German Workshop, vol. ii. p. 94. 


584 CHAPTER XII. 


Angiras, we read, asked her for the cows (vi. 65, 5), 
and the doors of the dark stable are said to be opened 
by her (iv. 51, 2). In one place her splendour is said 
to be spreading as if she were driving forth cattle (i. 
92, 12); in another the splendours of the Dawn are 
themselves called a drove of cows (iv. 51,8; 52, 5). 
Again, as it was said of Sarama, that she follows the 
right path, the path which all the heavenly powers 
are ordained to follow, so it is particularly said of the 
Dawn that she walks in the right way (i. 124, 3; 
118, 12). Nay, even the Panis, to whom Saram& 
was sent to claim the cows, are mentioned together 
with Ushas, the Dawn. She is asked to wake those 
who worship the gods, but not to wake the Pais 
(i. 124, 10). In another passage (iv. 51, 8) it is said 
that the Panis ought to sleep in the midst of dark- 
ness, while the Dawn rises to bring treasures for man. 

It is more than probable, therefore, that Sarama 
was but one of the many names of the Dawn; it is 
almost certain that the idea of storm never entered 
into the conception of her. The myth of which we 
have collected the fragments is clear enough. It is 
a reproduction of the old story of the break of day, 
The bright cows, the rays of the sun or the rain- 
clouds—for both go by the same name—have been 
stolen by the powers of darkness, by the Night and 
her manifold progeny. Gods and men are anxious 
for their return. But where are they to be found? 
They are hidden in a dark and strong stable, or 
scattered along the ends of the sky, and the robbers 
will not restore them. At last, in the farthest dis- 
tance, the first signs of the Dawn appear ; she peers 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 585 


about, and runs with lightning quickness, it may be, 
like a hound after a scent,! across the darkness of the 
sky. She is looking for something, and, following 
the right path, she has found it. She has heard 
the lowing of the cows, and she returns to her start- 
ing-place with more intense splendour.2 After her — 
return Indra arises, the god of light, ready to do 
battle in good earnest against the gloomy powers, 
to break open the strong stable in which the bright 
cows were kept, and to bring light, and strength, 
and life back to his pious worshippers. This is the 
simple myth of Saramaé; composed originally of a few 
fragments of ancient speech, such as—‘the Pavis stole 
the cows, i.e. the light of day is gone; ‘Sarama looks 
for the cows, i.e. the Dawn is spreading; ‘Indra has 
burst the dark stable, i.e. the sun has risen. 

All these are sayings or proverbs peculiar to India, 
and no trace of Sarama has yet been discovered in 
the mythological phraseology of other nations. But 
let us suppose that the Greeks said, ‘Sarama4 her- 
self has been carried off by Pani, but the gods will 
destroy her hiding-place and bring her back.’ This, 
too, would originally have meant no more than that 
the Dawn who disappears in the morning will come 
back in the gloaming, or with the light of the next 
day. The idea that Pani wished to seduce Sarama 
from her allegiance to Indra, may be discovered 
in the ninth verse of the Vedic dialogue, though in 


* Erigone, the early-born, also called Aletis, the rover, when looking 
for the dead body of her father, [karius (the father of Penelopeis his name- 
sake), is led by a dog, Matra. See Jacobi’s Mythologie, s.v.‘Ikarius.’ 

? Eeriboia, or Eriboia, betrays to Hermes the hiding-place where 
Ares was kept a prisoner. JJ. v. 385. 


586 CHAPTER XII. 


India it does not seem to have given rise to any 
further myths. But many a myth that only ger- 
minates in the Veda may be seen breaking forth in 
full bloom in Homer. If, then, we may be allowed 
a guess, we should recognise in Helena, the sister of 
the Dioskwroi, the Indian Sarama, their names being 
phonetically identical,’ not only in every consonant 
and vowel, but even in their accent. Apart from all 
mythological considerations, Sarama in Sanskrit is 
the same word as Helena in Greek; and unless we 
are prepared to ascribe such coincidences as Dyauws 
and Zeus, Varuna and Uvanos, Sarvara and Cer- 
berus, to mere accident, we are bound to trace 
Sardma and Heléne back to some point from which 
both could have started in common. The siege of 
Troy is but a repetition of the daily siege of the Kast 
by the solar powers that every evening are robbed of 
their brightest treasures in the West. That siege, 
in its original form, is the constant theme of the 
hymns of the Veda. Sarama, it is true, does not 
yield in the Veda to the temptation of Pani, yet 
the first indications of her faithlessness are there, 
and the equivocal character of the twilight which 
she represents would fully account for the further 
development of the Greek myth. In the Iliad, Briséis,? 
the daughter of Brises, is one of the first. captives 
taken by the advancing army of the West. In the 


! This is no longer tenable, because it has never been proved that a 
medial m in Sanskrit can be represented in Greek by n. 

2 This comparison also is no longer tenable, because the s in Greek 
between two vowels is irregular. It could be accounted for if Briséis 
stood for an original Barséis, though even then the comparison would 
remain doubtful. See also Bradke, in Zeitschrift der D. M. G.xl. p. 878. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 587 


“Veda, before the bright powers reconquer the light 
that had been stolen by Pami, they are said to have 
conquered the offspring of Brisaya. That daughter 
of Brises is restored to Achilles when his glory begins 
to set, just as all the first loves of solar heroes return 
to them in the last moments of their earthly career.’ 
And as the Sanskrit name Panis* betrays the former 
presence of an 7,° Paris himself might possibly be 
identified with the robber who tempted Sarama. I 
lay no stress on Helen calling herself a dog (J0. vi. 
344), but that the beautiful daughter of Zeus, (duhita 
Divah), the sister of the Dioskurov, was one of the 
many personifications of the Dawn, I cannot doubt. 
Whether she is carried off by Theseus or by Paris, 
she is always reconquered for her rightful husband ; 
she meets him again at the setting of his life, and 
dies with him, pardoned and glorified. This is the 
burden of many a Dawn myth, and it is the burden of 
the story of Helen. 

A weighty objection that has been made is that 
‘Edéva 18 among those words which, according to the 

1 See Cox, Tales of Argos and Thebes, Introduction, p. 90. 

2 Cf. Benfey, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, viii. 1-20, who traces Paris and 
Priamos to the same root. 

3 T state this very hesitatingly, because the etymology of Paziis as 
doubtful as that of Paris, and it is useless almost to compare mytholo- 
gical names, without first discovering their etymological intention. Mr. 
Cox, in his Introduction to the Z'ales of Argos and Thebes (p. 90), endea- 
vours to show that Paris belongs to the class of bright solar heroes. Yet 
if the germ of the Iliad is the battle between the solar and nocturnal 


powers, Paris surely belongs to the latter, and he whose destiny it is to 
kill Achilles in the Western gates, 
nuatt T@ OTe Kev ce Taps nat boiBos “AmdAAwv 
"EoOAOy edv7’ dArA€owow evi Sxarpor mvAnoty, 
could hardly have been himself of solar or vernal lineage. 


588 CHAPTER XII. 


testimony of Greek and Latin grammarians, had an 
initial digamma.' Because the so-called digamma 
(the Ff, the old vau, the Latin letter F) corresponds 
mostly to a Sanskrit and Latin v, it has become the 
fashion to use digamma as almost synonymous with 
the labial semivowel'v in Greek. Benfey, however, in 
his article on éxdrepos (in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift fiir Ver- 
gleichende Sprachforschung, vol. viii. p. 821, and 
again vol. ix. p.-99), has pointed out that what is 
generally, though not correctly, called digamma in 
Greek, represents at least three different letters in 
the cognate languages, v, s, y. These three letters 
became evanescent in earlier Greek ; and when either 
on the evidence of the Homeric metre, or on the evi- 
dence of grammarians, or even on the evidence of 
inscriptions, certain Greek words are said to have 
had an initial digamma, we must be prepared to find, 
corresponding to this so-called digamma, not only 
the v, but likewise the s and y in Sanskrit and Latin. 
Greek scholars are apt to put F wherever the metre 
proves the former presence of some one initial con- 
sonant. However, when we find feé, the F here 
represents a lost s,as proved by Latin sex, Sanskrit 
shat. Thus Févos is évos, and points to Latin senex, 
Sanskrit sana. When we find in Homer deds és, the 
os is lengthened because és had an initial y, as proved 
by Sanskrit yat. In the same manner, the fact that 
Dionysius quotes f Edé€va, nay, even the occurrence 


Cf. Tryph. ma@. Aeg. § 11. Priscianus, i. p. 21; xiii. p. 574. Ahrens, 
De Grace Lingue Dialectis, lib. i. p. 30 and 31. Mehlhorn, Griechische 
Grammatik, § 10, note 5: d&s Fedévn wal Favag wal Foikos kal Favhyp kat 
mOdAa ToatTa, Dion, Hal. A.R. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 589 


of F Edéva in ancient inscriptions, would by no means 
prove that Helena was originally Velena, and was de- 
rived from the root var or svar, but only that if the 
same word existed in the cognate languages, it might 
there begin with v, s, or y. The statement of Pris- 
cianus, ‘Sciendum tamen quod hoc ipsum (digamma) 
oles! quidem ubique loco aspirationis ponebant 
effugientes spiritus asperitatem,’ is more correct than 
was at one time supposed even by corhparative gram- 
marians ; for as the asper in Greek frequently repre- 
sents an original s or y, the Aolic digamma became 
with Greek scholars the exponent of s and y, as well 
as of the v for which it stood originally.’ 


Saraméya and Hermes. 


But who was SAraméya? His name certainly 
approaches very near to Hermeias, or Hermes, and 
though the exact form corresponding to Saraméya 
in Greek would be Héremeias, yet in proper names a 
slight anomaly like this may pass. Unfortunately, 
however, the Rigveda tells us even less of Sara- 


1 Ahrens, De Dial. Aol. p. 22. ‘Tale est quod Priscianus (i. p. 22) 
et Melampus (Bekker, 777, 15) semper apud AXolos asperum in Digamma 
mutari tradunt.’ 

2 How little weight critical scholars attach to the statements of early 
grammarians as to the presence of digamma in certain Greek words, 
may be seen from the following quotations :—Curtius, in his Grundziige, 
p- 276, speaking of avyp, which, according to Dionysius, possessed an 
initial digamma, says :—‘ Dionysius is a thoroughly suspicious witness, 
for he imagines that the digamma can be added at random.’ And 
again in his Studien zur Griech. und Latein Grammattk, vol.i. p. 144, he 
says: ‘At optime Kirchhoffius (Studiex, p. 61), eam in suspitionem 
vocavit. Grammaticorum igitur testimoniis. —Tryphon. maé. Aef. § 11. 
Mus. crit. Cant. t. i. p. 84: mpooridera: 5¢ nal 7d Siyappa mapa Te”Iwor 
kai Awpiedor kai Adkwou, ofov dvag Favag, ‘Edéva FeAdérva, cf. Priscian. i. 
p. 18: ‘nihil tribuendum esse, vix est quod moneam.’ 


590 CHAPTER XII. 


méya than of Sarama. It never calls any special 
deity the son of Sarama, but allows us to take the 
name in its appellative sense, namely, connected with 
Sarama, or the Dawn. If Hermeias is Siraméya, 
it is but another instance of a mythological germ 
withering away in one country, and spreading most 
luxuriantly in another. Dyaus in the Veda is the 
mere shadow of a deity, if compared with the Greek 
Zeus; Varuna, on the contrary, has assumed much 
greater proportions in India than Uranos in Greece, 
and the same applies to Vrztra, as compared with the 
Greek Orthros. But though we know so little about 
Saraméya in the Veda, the little we know of him 
is certainly compatible with a rudimentary Hermes. 
As Saraméya would be the son of the twilight, or, 
it may be, the first breeze of the dawn, so Hermes is 
born early in the morning. (Hom. Hym. Mere. 17.) 
As the Dawn in the Veda is brought by the bright 
Harits, so Hermes is called the leader of the Charites 
(7yeuov Xaptrwv). In the seventh book of the Rig- 
veda (vil. 54, 55) we find a number of verses strung 
together as it would seem at random, to be used as 
magical formule for sending people to sleep.t The 
principal deity invoked is VAastoshp ati, which means 
lord or guardian of the house, a kind of Zar. In two 
of these verses, the being invoked, whatever it be, is 
called Saraméya, and is certainly addressed as a dog, 
the watch-dog of the house. In the later Sanskrit 
also, saraméya is said to mean dog. Saraméya, if - 
it is here to be taken as the name of a deity, would 


* In viii. 47, 14, Ushas is asked to carry off sleeplessness. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 591 


seem to have been a kind of tutelary deity, the peep 
of day conceived as a person, watching unseen at the 
doors of heaven during the night, and giving his first 
bark in the morning. The same morning deity would 
naturally have been supposed to watch over the houses 
of man. The verses addressed to him do not tell us 
much: 


Guardian of the house, destroyer of evil, who assumest all 
forms, be to us a helpful friend. (1.) , 

When thou, bright SAraméya, openest thy teeth, O red one, 
spears seem to glitter on thy jaws as thou swallowest. Sleep, 
sleep. (2.) 

Bark at the thief, Saraméya, or at the robber, O restless one ! 
Now thou barkest at the worshippers of Indra; why dost thou 
distress us? Sleep, sleep!’ (3.) 


It is doubtful whether the guardian of the house 
(Vastoshpati), addressed in the first verse, is in- 
tended to be addressed in the next verses; it is 
equally doubtful whether Saraméya is to be taken 
as a proper name at all, or whether it simply means 
édos, bright, or speckled like the dawn. But if Sara- 
méya is a proper name, and if he is meant for the 
guardian of the house, no doubt it is natural to com- 
pare him with the Hermes propylaeos, prothyraeos, 
and pronaos, and with the Hermae in public places and 
private houses in Greece. Dr. Kuhn thinks that he 


1M. Michel Bréal, who has so ably analysed the myth of Cacus 
(Hercule et Cacus ; Etude de Mythologie comparée, Paris, 1863), and 
whose more recent essay, Le Mythe d’Gdipe, constitutes a valuable 
contribution to the science of mythology, has sent me the following note 
on Hermes as the guardian of houses and public places, which, with his 
kind permission, I beg to submit to the consideration of my readers :— 

‘A propos du dieu Hermes, je demande & vous soumettre quelques 
rapprochements. Il me semble que explication d’Hermés comme dieu 


592 CHAPTER XII. 


can discover in Saraméya the god of sleep, but in 
our hymn he would rather seem to be a disturber of 
sleep. One other coincidence, however, might be 
pointed out. The guardian of the house is called a 
destroyer of evil, more particularly of illness, and the 
same power is sometimes ascribed to Hermes. (Paus. 
1x. 22, 2.) 

We may admit, then, that Hermes and Saraméya 
started from the same point, but their history diverged 


du crépuscule n’épuise pas tous les attributs de cette divinité. Tl est 
encore le protecteur des propriétés, i] préside aux trouvailles : les bornes 
placées dans les champs, dans les rues et & la porte des temples, ont recu, 
au moins en apparence, son nom. Est-ce bien 1& le méme dieu, ou 
n’avons-nous pas encore ici un exemple de ces confusions de mots dont 
vous avez été le premier & signaler l’importance? Voici comment je 
m’explique cet amalgame. 

‘ Nous avons en grec le mot €pya, qui désigne une pierre, une borne, 
un poteau; épuiv et Epis, le pied du lit; Eppyaxes, des tas de pierres; 
épyav, un banc de sable; épyarifw veut dire je charge un vaisseau de 
son lest, et EpyoyAupeds désigne d’une maniére générale un tailleur de 
pierres. I] est clair que tous ces mots n’ont rien de commun avec le 
dieu Hermés. , 

‘Mais nous trouvons d’un autre cété le diminutif épyidiov ou éppadioy 
que les anciens traduisent par “ petite statue d’Hermeés.” Je crois que 
c'est ce mot qui a servi de transition et qui nous a valu ces pierres gros- 
siérement taillées, dans lesquelles on a voulu reconnaitre le dieu, devenu 
dés-lors le patron des propriétaires, malgré sa réputation de voleur. 
Quant & Epyaorv, qui désigne les trouvailles, je ne sais si c’est 4 lidée 
d’Hermés ou & celle de borne (comme marquant la limite de la propriété) 
qu'il faut rapporter ce mot. 

‘Tl resterait encore & expliquer un autre attribut d’Herméts—celui 
de l’éloquence. Mais je ne merends pas bien compte de la vraie nature 
du rapport qui unit le mot Hermés avec les mots comme épunvevw, 
Eppnveia, 

‘ J’ai oublié de vous indiquer d’ot je fais venir les mots comme Eppa, 
etc. Je les crois dérivés du verbe eipyw, épyw, en sorte que €pya serait 
pour €pyya, et de la méme famille que €pxos. L’esprit rude est-il primi- 
tif? Cela ne me parait pas certain. Peut-étre ces mots sont-ils de la 
méme famille que le latin arcere, erctwm, ercules, etc.’ (See vol. i. 
p. 105.) 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 593 


very early. Saraméya hardly attained a definite 
personality, Hermes grew into one of the principal 
gods of Greece. While Sarama, in India, stands on 
the threshold that separates the gods of light from 
the gods of darkness, carrying messages from one to 
the other, and inclining sometimes to the one, some- 
times to the other, Hermes, the god of the twilight, 
betrays his equivocal nature by stealing, though only 
in fun, the herds of Apollo, but restoring them with- 
out the violent combat that is waged for the same 
herds in India between Indra, the bright god, and 
Vala, the robber. In India the Dawn brings the 
light, in Greece the Twilight is itself supposed to 
have stolen it, or to hold back the light,! and Hermes, 
the twilight, surrenders the booty when challenged 
by the sun-god Apollo. Afterwards the fancy of 
Greek poets takes free flight, and out of common clay 
gradually models a divine image. But even in the 
Hermes of Homer and other poets, we can frequently 
discover the original traits of a Saraméya, if we 
take that word in the sense of twilight, and look on 
Hermes as a male representative of the light of the 
morning. He loves Herse, the dew, and Aglawros, 
her sister; among his sons is Kephalos, the head of 
the day. He is the herald of the gods, so is the 
twilight, so was Sarama, the messenger of Indra. 
He is the spy of the night, vuxtds dzamytip; he 
sends sleep and dreams; the bird of the morning, 
the cock, stands by his side. Lastly, he is the guide 


1 A similar idea is expressed in the Veda (v. 79, 9), where Ushas 
is asked to rise quickly, that the sun may not hurt her with his light, 
like a thief. 


Il. Qq 


594; . CHAPTER XII. 


of travellers, and particularly of the souls who travel 
on their last journey; he is the Psychopompos. And 
here he meets again, to some extent, with the Vedic 
SAraméya. The Vedic poets have imagined two 
dogs belonging to Yama, the lord of the departed 
spirits. They are called the messengers of Yama, 
bloodthirsty, broad-snouted, brown, four-eyed, pale, 
and sAraméya, the dawn-children. The departed is 
told to pass them by on his way to the Fathers, who 
are rejoicing with Yama; Yama is asked to protect 
the departed from these dogs; and, finally, the dogs them- 
selves are implored to grant life to the living, and to let 
them see the sun again. These two dogs represent one 
of the lowest of the many mythological conceptions of 
morning and evening, or, as we should say, of Time, 
unless we comprehend in the same class the legend of 
the ‘two white mice.’ These mice are represented as 
gnawing the root which a man had laid hold of when, 
followed by a furious elephant, he rushed into a well 
and saw at the bottom the dragon with open jaws, and 
the four serpents in the four corners of the well. The 
furious elephant is explained by the Buddhist moralist 
as death, the well as the earth, the dragon as hell, the 
four serpents as the four elements, the root of the shrub 
as the root of human life, the two white mice as sun 
and moon, which gradually consume the life of man.t 


1 Cf. Benfey, Pantschatantra, vol. i. p. 80; vol. ii. p. 528. 
Stanislas Julien, Les Avaddnas, Comtes et Apologues Indiens (Paris, 
1859), vol. i. pp. 182, 190. Dr. Rost, The Chinese and Japanese 
Repository, No. v. p. 217. History of Barlaam and Josaphat, ascribed 
to John of Damascus (about 740 A.D.), chap. xii. ; Homdyun Ndmeh, 
cap. iv.; Gesta Romanorum (Swane’s translation, vol. ii. No. 88) ; 
Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 758. See M.M., On the Migration of 
Fables, Selected Hssays, vol. i. p. 500. . 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 595 


Kerberos and Orthros. 


In Greece, Hermes, a child of the Dawn, with its 
fresh breezes, was said to carry off the souls of the 
departed ; in India, Morning and Evening, like two 
dogs, were fabled to watch for their prey, and to lay 
hold of those who could not reach the blessed abode 
of the Fathers. Greece, though she recognised Hermes 
as the guide of the souls of the departed, did not 
degrade him to the rank of a watch-dog of Hades. 
These watch-dogs, Kerberos and Orthros, represent, 
however, like the two dogs of Yama, the gloom of 
the morning and evening, here conceived as hostile 
and demoniacal powers. Orthros is the dark spirit 
that is to be fought by the Sun in the morning, the 
well-known Sanskrit Vritra; but Hermes, too, is 
said to rise drthrios, in the gloom of the morning. 
Kerberos is the darkness of night, to be fought by 
Herakles, the Night herself being called Sarvari? in 
Sanskrit. Hermes, as well as Kerberos, is called 
trikephalos,*? with three heads, and so is Trisiras, the 
brother of Saranyt, another name of the Dawn. 


1 Day and Night are called the outstretched arms of death, 
Kaushitaki-br. ii. 9: atha mrityor ha va etau vragabaht yad 
ahoratre. . 

~? See M.M., ‘ st Bellerophon Vritrahan?’ in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, 
v. 149. 

3 Hermes trikephalos; Gerhard, Gr. Myth. 281, 8. 

* That Kerberos is connected with the Sanskrit sarvari, night, was 
pointed out by me in the Transactions of the Philol. Soc., April 14, 
1848. Sabala, a corruption of sarvara, is vindicated as the name of 
daybreak, sy4ma, black, as the name of nightfall, by the Kaushitaki- 
brahmana, ii. 9 seg. (Ind. Stud. ii. 295.) This, no doubt, is an arti- 
ficial explanation, but it shows a vague recollection of the original 
meaning. of the two dogs. 


Qaq2 


596 CHAPTER XII. 


SunAsirau. 


There is one point still to be considered, namely, 
whether, by the poets of the Veda, the Dawn is ever 
conceived as a dog, and whether there is in the hymns 
themselves any foundation for the later legends which 
speak of Saramé as a dog. Professor Kuhn thinks 
that the word stina, which occurs in the Veda, is a 
secondary form of-svan, meaning dog, and that such 
passages as ‘sundm huvema maghévanam [n- 
dram’ (iii. 81, 22) should be translated, ‘Let us in- 
voke the dog, the mighty Indra.’ If this were so, we 
might prove, no doubt, that the Dawn also was spoken 
of asa dog. For we read (iv. 8,11): ‘Sundm narah 
pari sadan ushdsam,’ ‘Men surrounded the dog, 
the Dawn.’ But does suna ever mean dog? Never, 
it would seem, if used by itself. In all the passages 
where this word sun4m occurs, it means for the sake 
of happiness, auspiciously.’ It is particularly used 
with verbs meaning to invoke (hve), to worship 
(parisad), to pray (id)? There is not a single pas- 
sage where sunédm could be taken for dog. But | 
there are compounds in which suna would seem to 
have that meaning. In viii. 46, 28, Sina-ishitam 
most likely means carried by dogs, and in Sunasirau 
we have the name of a couple of deities, the former 
of which is said to be Suna, the latter Stra. YaAska 


140117, -18§ iii. 81, 223 “ive3)11 3°57; 43°5/,18 ; vinlG 4s 
8; 126, 7; 160, 5. 

2 Of svdn, we find the nominative sva (vii. 55, 5; x. 86, 4); the 
accusative svanam (i. 161, 18; ix. 101,1; 101, 13); the genitive 
stinah (i. 182, 4; iv. 18, 18; viii. 55, 8); the nom. dual svdna (ii. 39, 
4), and svanau, x. 14,10; 14,11. Also svapadah, x. 16, 6. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 597 


recognises in this Suna a name of Vayu, or the wind, 
in Sira a name of Aditya, or the sun. Another 
authority, Saunaka, declares Suna to be a name 
of Indra, Sira a name of Vayu. AsvalAayana 
(Srauta-stitra, ii. 20) declares that Sunadstrau 
may be meant for Vayu, or for Indra, or for Indra 
and Strya together. This shows, at all events, that 
the meaning of the two names was doubtful, even 
among early native theologians. The fact is that the 
Sunasirau occur but twice in the Rigveda, in a 
harvest hymn. Blessings are pronounced on _ the 
plough, the cattle, the labourers, the furrow, and 
among the rest the following words are addressed to 
the Sunasitrau: 


O Sunasirau, be pleased with this prayer. The milk which 
you make in heaven, pour it down upon this earth. (5). 


And again: 


May the ploughshares cut the earth with good luck! May 
the ploughers with the oxen follow with good luck! May 
Parganya (the god of rain) give good luck with fat and honey! 
May the Sunasirau give us good luck! 


Looking at these passages, and at the whole hymn 
from which they are taken, I cannot agree with Dr. 
Roth, who in his notes to the Nirukta thinks that 
Sira may in this compound mean the ploughshare, 
and Suna some other part of the plough. Sira 
might have that meaning, but there is nothing to 
prove that suna ever meant any part of the plough. 
The two Sunasirau are asked to send rain from 
heaven, and they are addressed together with Par- 
ganya, himself a deity, the god of rain. There is 


598 CHAPTER XII. 


another verse quoted by Asvalayana, in which 
Indra is called Sundsira.t What the exact meaning 
of the word is we cannot tell. It may be Suna, as 
Dr. Kuhn would suggest, the dog, whether meant for 
Vayu or Indra, and Sira, the sun or the furrow; 
or it may be a very old name for the dog-star ; called 
the Dog and the Sun, and in that case sira, or its 
derivative sairya, would give us the etymon of 
Seirios.2 But all-this is doubtful. What is certain 
is that there is nothing to justify us in ascribing to 
sunam the meaning of dog in any passage of the 
Veda. 

In the course of our investigations as to the original 
meaning of Sarama, we had occasion to allude to 
another name, derived from the same root sar, and 
to which the meaning of cloud and wind is equally 
ascribed by Professor Kuhn, namely, Saranyt, fem. 


Saravzyt and Erinys. 


Where saranyt is used as a masculine, its mean- 
ing is by no means clear. In the 61st hymn of the 
tenth book it is almost impossible to find a con- 
tinuous thread of thought. The verse in which 
Saranyu occurs is addressed to the kings Mitra 
and Varuma, and it is said there that Saranyu 
went to them in search of the cows. The com- 
mentator here explains Saranyu unhesitatingly by 
Yama (saranasila). In the next verse Saranyu 


tIndram vayam sundsiram asmin yagre havamahe, sa 
vageshu pra nosvishat. Srauta-S., ii, 20, 4. 

* Curtius, Grundziige, ii. 128, derives Setpios from svar, which, how- 
ever, would have given avpios or cépios, rather than ceipios. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 599 


is called a horse, just as Saranyt (fem.) is spoken 
of as a mare; and this Saranyu is called the son of 
him, i.e. according to Sayana, of Varuna.! In iti. 
32, 5, Indra is said to cause the waters to come forth 
together with the Saranyus, who are here mentioned 
very much like the Angiras in other. places, as 
helpers of Indra in the great battle against Vritra 
or Vala. In i. 62, 4, the common epithets of the 
Angiras (navagva and dasagva) are applied to 
the Saranyus, and there too Indra is said to have 
torn Vala asunder with the Saranyus. I believe, 
therefore, we must distinguish between the Sara- 
myus in the plural, a name of like import as that of 
the Angiras, possibly as that of the Maruts, and 
Saranyu in the singular, a name of the son of 
Varuna or of Yama. 

Of Saranyt, too, as a female deity, we learn but 
little from the hymns of the Rigveda, and though 
we ought always to guard against mixing up the 
ideas of the Rishis with those of their com- 
mentators, it must be confessed that in the case of 
Saranyt we should hardly understand what is said 
of her by the Rishis, without the explanations given 
by later writers, such as Yaska, Saunaka, and 
others. The classical and often-quoted passage about 
Saranyt is found, Rv. x. 17, 2: 

Tvashtar makes a wedding for his daughter, thus saying 


the whole world comes together; the mother of Yama, being 
wedded, the wife of the great Vivasvat has perished. 


1 He is called there garanyu, from a root which in Greek may have 
yielded Gorgé. Cf. Kuhn, Zeitschrift, i.460. Hrinys and Gorgons are 
almost identical in Greek. 


600 CHAPTER XII. 


They hid the immortal from the mortals; making one like 
her, they have given her to Vivasvat. But she bore the 
Asvins when this happened, and Saranyt left two couples} 
behind. 


Yaska (xi. 10) explains: ‘Sarany4, the daughter 
of Tvashtar, had twins from Vivasvat, the sun. 
She placed another like her in her place, changed her 
form into that of a horse, and ran off. Vivasvat, 
the sun, likewise assumed the form of a horse, fol- 
lowed her and embraced her. Hence the two Asvins 
were born, and the gubstitute (Savarna) bore 
Manu. Yaska likewise states that the first twins 
of Saranyt are by etymologists supposed to be 
Madhyama and Madhyamika VAk, by mytholo- 
gists Yama and Yam?; and he adds at the end, in 
order to explain the disappearance of Saranyt, 
that the night vanishes when the sun rises. This 
last remark, however, is explained or corrected by 
the commentator,? who says that Ushas, the Dawn, 
was the wife of Aditya, the sun, and that she, and 
not the night, disappears at the time of sunrise. 

Before proceeding further, I shall add a few par- 
ticulars from Saunaka’s Brihaddevata. He says _ 
that Tvashtar had a couple of children, Saranyt 
and Trisiras (Trikephalos); that he gave Saran yu 
to Vivasvat, and that she bore him Yama and 
Yamt: they were twins, but Yama was the elder 


* One couple, according to Dr. Kuhn, Zeitschrift fiir Vergleichende 
Sprachforschunq, i. p. 441. 

* Sankshepato Bhashyakarosrtham nirdha. Adityasya 
Usha gayasa, sidityodayesntardhiyate. It is possible, of 
course, to speak of the Dawn both as the beginning of the day, and as 
the end of the night, 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN.. 601 


of the two. Then Saranyt made a woman like 
herself, gave her the children, and went away. 
Vivasvat was deceived, and the substitute (Sa- 
varna) bore him a child, Manu, as bright as his 
father. Afterwards Vivasvat discovered his mis- 
take, and assuming himself the form of a horse, — 
rushed after Saranyt, and she became in a peculiar 
manner the mother of Nasatya and Dasra, who are 
called the two Asvins, or horsemen. 

It is difficult to say how much of these legends is 
old and genuine, and how much was invented after- 
wards to explain certain mythological phrases occur- 
ring in the Rigveda. 

Saranyt, the water-woman,! as the daughter of 
Tvashtar (maker), who is also called Savitar 
(creator), and Visvartipa, having all forms (x. 10, 5) 
—as the wife of Vivasvat (also called Gandharva, 
x. 10, 4)—as the mother of Yama—as hidden by the 
immortals from the eyes of mortals—as replaced by 
another wife, and again as the mother of the Asvins 
—all this is ancient, and confirmed by the hymns of 
the Rigveda. But the legend of Saranyt and 
Vivasvat assuming the form of horses, may be 
meant simply as an explanation of the name of their 
children, the Asvins (equini or equites). The legend 
of Manu being the son of Vivasvat and SavarnA 
may be intended as an explanation of the names 
Manu Vaivasvata and Manu Savarni. 

* In x. 10, 4, I take Gandharva for Vivasvat, Apy4& Yosha for 
Saranyd, in accordance with Sayana, though differing from Professor 
Kuhn. In the next verse ganita is not father, but creator, and belongs 


to Tvash¢a savitaé visvarfipah, the father of Saranyt, or the 
creator in general, in his solar character of Savitar. 


602 CHAPTER XII. 


Professor Kuhn has identified Saranyt with the 
Greek Hrinys. With this identification I fully agree. 
I had arrived independently at the same identifica- 
tion, and we had discussed the problem together, be- 
fore Dr. Kuhn’s essay was published. But our agree- 
ment ends with the name; and after having given 
a careful, and, I hope, impartial consideration to my 
learned friend’s analysis, I feel confirmed rather than 
shaken in the view which I entertained of Saranyt 
from the first. Professor Kuhn, adopting in the 
main the views of Professor Roth, explains the myth 
as follows: 

Tvashtar, the creator, prepares the wedding for his daughter 
Saranyt, i.e. the fleet, impetuous, dark, storm-cloud (Sturm- 
wolke), which in the beginning of all things soared in space. 
He gives to her as husband Vivasvat, the brilliant, the light 
of the celestial heights—according to later views, which, for 
the sake of other analogies, I cannot share, the sun-god him- 
self. Light and cloudy darkness beget two couples of twins: 
first, Yama, i.e. the twin, and Yami, the twin-sister (a word 
which suggests itself); secondly, the two Asvins, the horse- 
men. But after this the mother disappears, i.e. the chaotic, 
storm-shaken dimness; the gods hide her, and she leaves behind 
two couples. To Vivasvat there remains, as his wife, but one 
like her, as anonymous woman, not further to be defined. The 
latest tradition (Vishnu Purana, p. 266) calls her Khaya, 
shadow, 1.e. the myth knows of no other wife to give to him. 


Was this the original conception of the myth? 
Was Saranyt the storm-cloud, which in the begin- 
ning of all things was soaring in infinite space? Is 
it possible to form a clear conception of this primeval 
storm-cloud, as described by Professor Roth and Pro- 
fessor Kuhn? And if not, how is the original idea of 
Saranyt to be discovered ? 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 603 


There is but one way, I believe, for discovering the 
original meaning of Saranyd, namely, to find out 
whether the attributes and acts peculiar to Saranyt 
are ever ascribed to other deities whose nature is less 
obscure. The first question, therefore, we have to 
ask is this—Is there any other deity who is said to © 
have given birth to twins? There is, namely, Ushas, 
the Dawn. We read (ili. 39, 3) in a hymn which 
describes the sunrise under the usual imagery of 
Indra conquering darkness and recovering the sun: 

The mother of the twins has borne the twins ; the tip of my 
tongue falls, for she approaches; the twins that are born assume 


form—they, the conquerors of darkness, that have come at the 
foot of the sun. 


We might have guessed from the text itself, even 
without the help of the commentator, that the 
‘mother of the twins’ here spoken of is the Dawn; 
but it may be stated that the commentator, too, 
adopts this view. 

The next question is, Is there any other deity who 
is Spoken of as a horse, or rather, as a mare? There 
is, namely, Ushas, the Dawn. The Sun, no doubt, 
is the deity most frequently spoken of as a horse.! 
But the Dawn also is not only called rich in horses, 
and represented as carried by them, but she is her- 
self compared to a horse. Thus, i. 80, 21, and iv. 
52, 2,7 the Dawn is likened to a mare, and in the 
latter passage she is called at the same time the 
friend of the Asvins. In the MahAbh4rata (Adi- 


1 Comparative Mythology, p. 82. Chips, vol. ii. p. 188; supra, 
p. 473. 
2 dsve n& kitre arushi; or better, dsveva kitre. 


604 CHAPTER XII. 


parva, 2,599) the mother of the Asvins is likewise 
said to have the form of a mare, vadava.! 

Here, then, we have a couple, the Sun and the 
Dawn, that might well be represented in legendary 
language as having assumed the form of a horse and 
a mare. 


Correlative Deities. 


The next question is, ‘Who could be ealled their 
children?’ and in order to answer this question satis- 
factorily, it will be necessary to discuss somewhat 
fully the character of a whole class of Vedic deities. 
It is important to observe that the children of 
Saranyt are spoken of as twins. The idea of twin 
powers is one of the most fertile ideas in ancient 
mythology. Many of the most striking phenomena 
of nature were comprehended by the ancients under 
that form, and were spoken of in their mythic phrase- 
ology as brother and sister, husband and wife, father 
and mother. The Vedic Pantheon particularly is 
full of deities which are always introduced in the 
dual, and they all find their explanation in the pal- 
pable dualism of nature, Day and Night, Dawn 
and Gloaming, Morning and Evening, Summer and 
Winter, Sun and Moon, Light and Darkness, Heaven 
and Earth. All these are dualistic or correlative con- 
ceptions. The two are conceived as one, as belonging 
to each other; nay, they sometimes share the same 
name. Thus we find AhorAtre? (not in Rigveda), 

* Kuhn, Zeitschrift, i. 528. 

? A distinction ought to be made between ahoratrad, or ahora- 


tram, the time of day and night together, a vux@qpuepov, which is a 
masculine or neuter, and ahoratré, the compound dual of ahan, day, 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 605 


day and night, but also Ahan? (i. 123, 7), the two 
days, i.e. day and night. We find Ushasanakta 
(i. 122, 2), dawn and night, Néktoshasa (i. 18, 7; 
142, 7), night and dawn, but also Ushdsau (i. 188, 
6), the two dawns, i.e. dawn and night. There is 
Dyavaprithivi, heaven and earth (i. 143, 2), 
Prithividydva, earth and heaven (iii. 46, 5), but 
also Dyava (ii. 6, 4). Instead of Dy4vaprithivt, 
other compounds such as Dy ava kshdméa (iii. 8, 8), 
Dyavabhimi (iv. 55, 1), are likewise met with in 
the text, while Dyunisau, day and night, is found 
in the commentary. Now as long as we have to 
deal with such outspoken names as these, there can 
be little doubt as to the meaning of the praises be- 
stowed on them, or of the acts which they are said 
to have performed. If Day and Night, or Heaven 
and Earth, are praised as sisters, even as twin-sisters, 
we can hardly call this as yet mythological lan- 


and ratri, night, meaning the day and the night, as they are frequently 
addressed together. This compound I take to be a feminine, though, as 
it can occur in the dual only, it may also be taken for a neuter, as is 
done by the commentary to Panini, ii. 4, 28, 29; but not by Panini 
himself. Thus A. V. vi. 128, 3, Ahoratrabhy4m, as used in the 
dual, does not mean twice twenty-four hours, but day and night, just as 
siryaxandramasabhyam, immediately after, means sun and moon. 
The same applies to A.V. x. 7,6; 8, 23; Khand. Up. viii. 4,1; 
Manu, i. 65, and other passages given by Boehtlingk and Roth, s. v. 
In all of these the meaning ‘two nycthemerons,’ would be entirely inap- 
propriate. That ahoratre was considered a feminine as late as the time 
of the Vagasaneyi-sanhité, is shown by a passage xiv. 30, where 
ahordatre are called adhipatni, two mistresses, Ahoratre 
does not occur in the Rigveda. Ahordtrani occurs once in 
the tenth book. <A passage quoted by B. R. from the Rigveda, 
where ahoratrah is said to occur as masce. plur., does not belong 
to the Rigveda at all. Ait, Br. ii. 4, ahorAtre va ushasa- 
nakta, 


606 CHAPTER XII. 


guage, though no doubt it may be a beginning of 
mythology. Thus we read, i. 123, 7: | 

‘One goes away, the other comes near, the two 
Ahans (Day and Night) walk together. One of the 
two neighbours created darkness in secret, the Dawn 
flashed forth on her shining cav.’ 

i. 185, 1: ‘ Which of the two is first, which is last ? 
How are they born, ye poets? Who knows it? 
These two support everything that exists; the two 
Ahans (Day and Night) turn round like wheels.’ * 

In iv. 55, 8, Dawn and Night (Ushasanakta) 
are spoken of as distinct from the two Ahans (Day 
and Night). 

In v. 82, 8, Savitar, the sun, is said to walk before 
them. 

In x. 39, 12, the daughter of the sky, i.e. the 
Dawn, and the two Ahans, Day and Night, are said 
to be born when the Asvins put their horses to their 
car. 

In a similar manner the DyA4vaprithivi, Heaven 
and Earth, are spoken of as sisters, as twins, as living 
in the same house (i. 159, 4), &e. 

It is clear, however, that instead of addressing 
dawn and gloaming, morning and evening, day and 
night, heaven and earth by their right names, and as 
feminines, it was possible, nay, natural, to speak of light 
and darkness as male powers also, and to address the 
authors of light and darkness, the bringers of day and 
night, as personal beings. And so we find, correspond- 
ing to the former couples, a number of correlative 


1 Or like things belonging to a wheel, spokes, &c. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 607 


deities, having in common most of the characteristics 
of the former, but assuming an independent mytho- 
logical existence. 

The best known are the Asvins, who are always 
spoken of in the dual. Whether asvin means pos- | 
sessed of horses, horseman, or descendants of Asva,! 
the sun, or Asva4, the dawn, certain it is that the 
same conception underlies their name and the names 
of the sun and the dawn, when addressed as horses. 
The sun was looked upon as a racer, so was the dawn, 
though in a less degree, and so were, again, the two 
powers which seemed incorporated in the coming and 
going of each day and each night, and which were 
represented as the chief actors in all the events of the 
diurnal play. This somewhat vague, but, for this very 
reason, I believe, all the more correct character of the 
two Asvins did not escape even the later commenta- 
tors. Yaska, in the twelfth book of his Nirukta, 
when explaining the deities of the sky, begins with 
the two Asvins. They come first, he says, of all the 
celestial gods ; they arrive even before sunrise. Their 
name is explained in the usual fanciful way of Indian 
commentators. They are called Asvin, Yaska says, 
from the root as, to pervade ; because the one pervades 
everything with moisture, the other with light. He 
likewise quotes Aurnavabha, who derives Asvin 
from asva, horse. But who are these Asvins? he 
asks. ‘Some,’ he replies, ‘say they are heaven and 
earth, others day and night, others sun and moon; 
and the legendarians maintain that they were two 
virtuous kings.’ 


1 Cf. Krisdsvinahk, Pan. iv. 2, 66. 


608 CHAPTER XII. 


Let us consider next the time when the Asvins 
appear. Yaska places it after midnight, as the light 
begins gradually to withstand the darkness of the 
night; and this agrees perfectly with the indications 
to be found in the Rigveda, where the Asvins appear 
before the dawn, ‘when Night leaves her sister, the 
Dawn, when the dark one gives way to the bright’ 
(vii. 71, 1); or, ‘when one black cow sits among the 
bright cows’ (x. 61, 4). 

Yaska seems to assign to the one the overcoming 
of light by darkness, to the other the overcoming of 
darkness by light.1. Yaska then quotes sundry verses 
to prove that the two Asvins belong together (though 
one lives in the sky, the other in the air, says the 
commentator), that they are invoked together, and 
that they receive the same offerings. ‘You walk 
along during the night like two black goats.2, When, 
O Asvins, do you come here towards the gods 2’ 

In order to prove, however, that the Asvins are 
likewise distinct beings, another half-verse is added, 
in which the one is called Vasitya (not Nasatya), 
the son of Night, the other the son of Dawn. 

More verses are then quoted from the Rigveda— 


1 The words of Yaska are obscure, nor does the commentator throw 
much light on them. ‘Tatra yat tamosnupravishtam gyotishi 
tadbhago madhyamak, tan madhyamasya raipam, Yag 
gyotis tamasy anupravishtam tadbhagam tadripam 4di- 
tyah (sic) Tav-etau madhyamottamav iti svamatam 4k- 
aryasya. Madhyama may be meant for Indra, Uttama for 
Aditya; but in that case the early Asvin would be Aditya, the sun, 
the late Asvin, Indra. Dr. Kuhn (/.c. p. 442) takes madhyama 
for Agni. 

2 Petvau is explained by mesha, goat, not by megha, cloud, as 
stated by Dr. Roth, Cf, Rv, ii. 39, 2, ag@ iva. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 609 


those before quoted coming from a different source 
—where the Asvins are called ihéhagAtdu, born 
here and there, i.e. on opposite sides, or in the air 
and in the sky. One is gish7u, victorious, he who 
bides in the air; the other is subhaga, happy, the 
son of Dyu, or the sky, and here identified with 
Aditya or the sun. Again: ‘Wake the two who 
harness their cars in the morning! Asvins, come 
hither, for a draught of this Soma.’ 

Lastly: ‘Sacrifice early, hail the Asvins! Not in 
the dreary evening is the sacrifice of the gods. Nay, 
some person different from us sacrifices and draws 
them away. The sacrificer who comes first is the 
most liked.’ 

The time of the Asvins is by Yaska supposed to 
extend to about sunrise ; at that time other gods ap- 
pear and require their offerings, and first of all Ushas, 
the Dawn.' Here, again, a new distinction is made 
between the dawn of the air (enumerated in the 
two preceding books, together with the other mid- 
air deities) and the dawn of the sky, a distinction 
which it is difficult to understand.? For though in 


1 Rv. i. 46, 14: yuvés ushdh &nu sriyam périgmanoh upd 
akarat. . 

? T add a note received from one of my many unknown friends. In 
a letter from Mr. L. M. H.the following passage occurs :—‘ I note that 
you speak of the distinction expressed by the old Indian poets between 
‘the dawn of the air” and ‘‘ the dawn of the sky,” as difficult to under- 
stand. Before reading these words, I had been struck, several times 
this spring, by the beautiful manner in which, after a calm night, 
shortly before sunrise, a cool gentle breeze from the east began to stir 
and wake up into lively motion the leaves of the olive-trees, until they 
seemed to be, in almost conscious exultation, heralding the sun’s 
approach,—whilst the dawning light was proclaiming his approach in 
the sky. May not these old Eastern poets have felt that two such 


II. Rr 


610 CHAPTER XII. 


the verse which is particularly said to be addressed 
to the dawn of the air, she is said to appear in the 
eastern half of the ragas, which ragas Yaska takes 
to mean mid-air, yet this could hardly have consti- 
tuted a real distinction in the minds of the original 
poets. ‘These rays of the Dawn have made a light in 
the eastern half of the welkin ; they adorn themselves 
with splendour, like strong men unsheathing their 
weapons: the bright cows approach the mothers’ (of 
hight, bhaso nirmatryah). 

Next in time is Sirya, a female Strya, i.e. the 
sun as a feminine, or, according to the commentator, 
the Dawn again under a different name. In the Rig- 
veda, too, the Dawn is called the wife of Strya 
(siryasya ydésha, vii. 75, 5), and the Asvins are 
sometimes called the husbands of Strya (Rigveda, 
iv. 43, 6). It is said in a Brdhmana that Savitar 
gave Stirya (his daughter?) to King Soma or to 
Pragapati. The commentator explains that Savi- 
tar is the sun, Soma the moon, and Stirya the 
moonlight, which comes from the sun. This, how- 
ever, seems somewhat fanciful, and savours decidedly 
of later mythology. 

Next in time follows Vrishakapayi, the wife of 
Vrishakapi. Who she is is very doubtful.! The 
commentary says that she is the wife of VrvshAkapi, 
and that Vrzshakapi is the sun, so called because he 


phenomena might fitly, yet distinctly, be described, the one as “‘ the 
dawn of the air,” the other as ‘‘the dawn of the sky ”’—both har- 
moniously combining, as twin offspring from a common eastern source, 
in the office of heralding the approach of the great God of Day ?’” 

* According to Dr. Kuhn, the Evening-twilight, l.c. p. 441, but 
without proof, 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 6)1 


is enveloped in mist (avasyAvan, or avasyAyavan). 
Most likely’ Vrishakapay? is again but another 
conception or name of the Dawn, as the wife of the 
Sun, who draws up or drinks the vapours from the 
earth.” Her son is said to be Indra, her daughter- 
in-law Vak, here meant for thunder, a genealogy 
hardly in accordance with the rest of the hymn from 
which our verse is taken, and where VrishakapAy?i 
is rather the wife than the mother of Indra. Her 
oxen are clouds of vapour, which Indra swallows, as 
the sun might be said to consume the vapours of the 
morning. It is difficult, on seeing the name of 
Vrishakapi, not to think of HLrikapaeos, an Orphic 
name of Protogonos, and synonymous with Phanes, 
Helios, Priapos, Dionysos; but the original concep- 
tion of Vrish&ékapi is not much clearer than that of 
Erikapaeos, and we should only be explaining obscu- 
rum per obscurius. 

Next in order of the deities of the morning is our 
Saranyt, whose time is said to be when the sky is 
free from darkness and covered with rays. 

We need not follow any further the systematic 
catalogue of the gods as given by Yaska. It is clear 
that he knew of the right place of the two Asvins, 
and that he placed the activity of the one at the very 
beginning of day, and hence that of the other at the 
very beginning of night. He treats them as twins, 
born together in the early twilight. 


* This is the opinion of Durga, who speaks of Ushas, vrisha- 
kapayyavasthayam. 

* K-api need not have meant here monkey, but may have retained 
the same meaning which we find in samvds, vapour. 


Li ee 


612 CHAPTER XII. 


YaAaska, however, is not to be considered as an au- 
thority, except if he can be proved to agree with the 
hymns of the Rigveda, to which we now return. 

The preponderating idea in the conception of the 
Asvins in the hymns of the Rigveda is that of 
correlation, which, as we saw, they share in common 
with such twin-deities as heaven and earth, day and 
night, &c. That idea, no doubt, is modified according 
to circumstances, the Asvins are brothers, Heaven 
and Earth are sisters. But if we remove these out- 
ward masks, we shall find behind them, and behind 
some other masks, the same actors, Nature in her 
twofold aspect of daily change—morning and even- 
ing,’ light and darkness—aspects which in time may 
expand into those of spring and winter, life and death ; 
nay, even of good and evil. 

Before we leave the Asvins in search of other 
twins, and ultimately in search of the twin-mother, 
Saranyt, the following hymn may help to impress 
on our minds the dual character of these Indian 
Dioskwroi. 

Like the two stones” you sound for the same object.? You 
are like two hawks rushing towards a tree with a nest;* like 


* Ry. i. 34, 1: yuvoér hi yantrdm himyéva vasasah, ‘your 
journey is as of the day with the night.’ 

* Used at sacrifices for crushing and pressing out the juice of the 
Soma plant. 

* Tdd fd drtham is used almost adverbially in the sense of ‘for the 
same purpose. Thus, Ry. ix. 1, 5, ‘We come to see every day for the 
same purpose.’ As to gar, I take it in the usual sense of sounding, 
making a noise, and, more particularly, praising. The stones for press- 
ing out the Soma are frequently spoken of as themselves praising, 
while they are being handled by the priests (v. 37, 2). 

* Nidhi, originally that where something is placed, afterwards 
treasure. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 613 


two priests reciting their prayers at a sacrifice ; like the two 
messengers of a clan called for in many places. (1.) 

Coming early, like two heroes on their chariots, like twin- 
goats, you come to him who has chosen you; like two women, 
beautiful in body; like husband and wife, wise among their 
people. (2). . 

Like two horns, come first towards us; like two hoofs, rushing 
on quickly; like two birds, ye bright ones, every day, come 
hither, like two charioteers,! O ye strong ones! (3.) 

like two ships, carry us across; like two yokes, like two 
naves of a wheel, like two spokes, like two felloes; like two 
dogs that do not hurt our limbs; like two armours, protect us 
from destruction! (4.) 

like two winds, like two streams, your motion is eternal ; 
like two eyes, come with your sight towards us! Like two 
hands, most useful to the body; like two feet, lead us towards 
wealth. (5.) 

Like two lips, speaking sweetly to the mouth; like two 
breasts, feed us that we may live. Like two nostrils, as 
guardians of the body; like two ears, be inclined to listen to 
us. (6.) 

Like two hands, holding our strength together; like heaven 
and earth, drive together the clouds. O Asvins, sharpen 
these songs that long for you, as a sword is sharpened with a 
whetstone. (7.) 


Like the two Asvins, who are in later times dis- 
tinguished by the names of Dasra and Nasatya, 
we find another couple of gods, Indra and Agni, 
addressed together in the dual, Indragn?, but like- 
wise as Indra, the two Indras, and Agni, the two 
Agnis (vi. 60, 1), just as heaven and earth are called 
the two heavens, and the Asvins the two Dasras, 
or the two Nasatyas. Indra is the god of the 
bright sky, Agni the god of fire, and they have each 
their own distinct personality; but when invoked 


MRathyaé: Cf. v. 76, 1: 


614, CHAPTER XII, 


together, they become correlative powers and are con- 
ceived as one joint deity. Curiously enough, they are 
actually in one passage called asvin&! (i. 109, 4), and 
they share several other attributes in common with 
the Asvins. They are called brothers, they are called 
twins; and as the Asvins were called ihehagate, 
born here and there, i.e. on opposite sides, in the Kast 
and in the West, or in heaven and in the air, so 
Indra and Agni, when invoked together, are called 
ihehamatara, they whose mothers are here and 
there (vi. 59, 2). Attributes which they share in 
common with the Asvins are vrishana, bulls, or 
givers of rain ;? vrzitrahana, destroyers of Vritra,’ 
or of the powers of darkness; sambhuv4,' givers of 
happiness; supani, with good hands; vilupani,° 
with strong hands; genyavast, with genuine wealth.° 
But in spite of these similarities, it must not be sup- 
posed that Indra and Agni together are a mere 
repetition of the Asvins. There are certain epithets 
constantly applied to the Asvins (subhaspati, 
vaginivast, sudant, &c.), which, as far as I know, 
are not applied to Indra and Agni together; and 
vice versd (Ssadaspati, sahurt). Again, there are 


* Dr. Kuhn, l.c. p. 450, quotes this passage and others, from 
which, he thinks, it appears that Indra was supposed to have sprung 
from a horse (x. 73, 10), and that Agni was actually called the horse 
(i, 35,6). 

? Indra and Agni, i. 109, 4; the Asvins, i. 112, 8. 

* Indra and Agni, i. 108, 3; the Asvins, viii. 8, 9 (vritrahan- 
tama). 

* Indra and Agni, vi. 60, 14; the Asvins, viii. 8, 19; vi. 62, 5. 

° Indra and Agni, supani, i. 109, 4; the Asvins, vilupani, 
vil. 73, 4. 

° Indra and Agni, viii. 38, 7; the Asvins, vii. 74, 3. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 615 


certain legends constantly told of the Asvins, par- 
ticularly in their character as protectors of the help- 
less and dying, and resuscitators of the dead, which 
are not transferred to Indra and Agni. Yet, as if 
to leave no doubt that Indra, at all events, coincides 
in some of his exploits with one of the Asvins or 
Nasatyas, one of the Vedic poets uses the compound 
Indra-Nisatyau, Indra and Nasatya, which, on 
account of the dual that follows, cannot be explained 
as Indra and the two Asvins, but simply as Indra 
and Nasatya. 

Besides the couple of Indragni, we find some other, 
though less prominent couples, equally reflecting the 
dualistic idea of the Asvins, namely, Indra and 
Varuna, Indra and Vishynu, and, more important 
than either, Mitra and Varuna. Instead of Indra- 
Varuna, we find again Indra,’ the two Indras, and 
Varuna, the two Varunas (iv. 41,1). They are 
called sudanti (iv. 41, 8); vreshana (vii. 82, 2); 
sambht (iv. 41,7); mahavast (vil. 82, 2). Indra- 
Vishvnit are actually ¢ led dasra, the usual name of 
the Asvins (vi. 69, 7). Now Mitra and Varuna 
are clearly intended for day and night. They, too, 
are compared to horses (vi. 67, 4), and they share cer- 
tain epithets in common with the twin-gods, sudant 
(vi. 67, 2), vreshanau (i. 151, 2). But their character 
assumes much greater distinctness, and though clearly 
physical in their first conception, they rise into moral 
powers, far superior in that respect to the Asvins 
and to Indragni. Their physical nature is per- 
ceived in a hymn of Vasishtha (vii. 63) : 


1 Ag in Latin Castores and Polluces, instead of Castor et Pollux. 


616 CHAPTER XII. 


The sun, common to all men, the happy, the all-seeing, 
steps forth; the eye of Mitra and Varuna, the bright; he 
who rolls up darkness like a skin. 

He steps forth, the enlivener of men, the great waving light 
of the sun; wishing to turn round the same wheel which his 
horse Etasa draws, joined to the team. 

Shining forth, he rises from the lap of the Dawn, praised by 
singers, he, my god Savitar, stepped forth, who never misses 
the same place. 

He steps forth, the splendour of the sky, the wide-seeing, 
the far-aiming, the shining wanderer; surely, enlivened by the 
sun, men do go to their tasks and do their work. 

Where the immortals made a walk for him, there he follows 
the path, soaring like a hawk. We shall worship you, Mitra 
and Varuna, when the sun has risen, with praises and 
offerings, 

Will Mitra, Varuna, and Aryaman bestow favour on us 
and our kin? May all be smooth and easy tous! Protect us 
always with your blessings! 


The ethic and divine character of Mitra and 
Varuma breaks forth more clearly in the following 
hymn (vii. 65): 


When the sun has risen I call on you with hymns, Mitra 
and Varuna, full of holy strength; ye whose imperishable 
divinity is the oldest, moving on your way with knowledge of 
everything.! 

For these two are the living spirits among the gods; they 
are the lords; do you make our fields fertile. May we come 
to you, Mitra and Varuna, where they nourish days and 
nights. 

They are the catchers’ of the unrighteous, holding many 


' The last sentence is doubtful. 

* Setu means binding. SAyana never explains it as bridge in the 
Rigveda, though in the Tait. Br. il. 4, 2, 6, it seems to have that 
meaning: 4 tantum agnir divyam tatiana; tvam nas tantur 
uta setur agne, tvam pantha bhavasi devayanah, 

In Rv. x. 67, 4, setu in the singular means prison, or keep: ‘The 
cows which stand hidden in the prison of the unrighteous.’ Setu here 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 617 


nooses; they are hard to be overcome by a hostile mortal. 
Let us pass, Mitra and Varuna, on your way of righteous- 
ness, across sin, as in a ship across the water. 


The Riddle of the Dawn. 


Now if we inquire who could originally be con- 
ceived as the father of all these correlative deities, we 
can easily understand that it must be some supreme 
power that is not itself involved in the diurnal revo- 
lutions of the world, such as the sky, for instance, 
conceived as the father of all things, or some still 
more abstract deity, like Pragdpati, the lord of 
creation, or Tvashtar, the fashioner, or Savitar, 
the creator. Their mother, on the contrary, must be 
the representative of some place in which the twins 
meet, and from which they seem to spring together 
in their diurnal career. This place may be either the 
dawn or the gloaming, the sunrise or the sunset, the 
East or the West, only all these conceived not as 
mere abstractions, but as mysterious beings, as 
mothers, as powers containing within themselves the 
whole mystery of life and death brought thus visibly 
before the eyes of the thoughtful worshipper. The 
dawn, which to us is merely a beautiful sight, was 
to the early gazer and thinker the problem of all 
problems. It was the unknown land from whence 
rose every day those bright emblems of a divine 
is the same as asmanmdayani ndhana, of the preceding verse. In 
vill. 67, 8, setuh may be fetter, or he who fetters, viz. the enemy, the 
dasyu avrata, the durddhi. 

In ix. 73, 4, setu, in the plural, may mean snares, or the catchers 
having hooks in their hands, or the fetters of Varuna. 


In vii. 84, 2, yat setribhiZ araggtbhih sinithék must be 
translated by ‘Ye who bind with bonds not made of rope.’ 


618 CHAPTER XII. 


power which left in the mind of man the first im- 
pression and intimation of another world, of power 
above, of order and wisdom. What we simply call 
the sunrise, brought before their eyes every day the 
riddle of all riddles, the riddle of existence. The days 
of their life sprang from that dark abyss which every 
morning seemed instinct with light and life. Their 
youth, their manhood, their old age, all were to the 
Vedic bards the gift of that heavenly mother who 
appeared, bright, young, unchanged, immortal every 
morning, while everything else seemed to grow old;to 
change, and droop, and at last to set, never to return. 
It was there, in that bright chamber, that, as their 
poets said, mornings and days were spun, or, under 
a different image, where mornings and days were 
nourished (x. 37, 2; vii. 65, 2), where life or time 
was drawn out (i. 118, 16). It was there that the 
mortal wished to go to meet Mitra and Varuna. 
The whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient 
world centred in the Dawn, the mother of the bright 
gods, of the sun in his various aspects, of the morn, 
the day, the spring ; herself the brilliant inrage and 
visage of immortality. 

It is of course impossible to enter fully into all the 
thoughts and feelings that passed through the minds 
of the early poets when they formed names for that far 
far Kast from whence even the early dawn, the sun, 
the day, their own life, seemed to spring. A new life 
flashed up every morning before their eyes, and the 
fresh breezes of the dawn reached them like greetings 
watted across the golden threshold of the sky from 
the distant lands beyond the mountains, beyond the 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 619 


clouds, beyond the dawn, beyond ‘the immortal sea 
which brought us hither. The Dawn seemed to 
them to open golden gates for the sun to pass in 
triumph, and while those gates were open their eyes 
and their minds strove in their childish way to pierce 
beyond the limits of this finite world. That silent 
aspect awakened in the human mind the conception 
of the Infinite, the Immortal, the Divine, and the 
names of dawn became naturally the names of higher 
powers. Saranyt, the Dawn, was called the 
mother of Day and Night, the mother of Mitra and 
Varuna, divine representatives of light and dark- 
ness; the mother of all the bright gods (i. 118, 19); 
the face of Aditi (i. 118, 19).1. Now, whatever the 
etymological meaning of Aditi,’ it is clear that she 
is connected with the Dawn—that she represents 
that which is beyond the Dawn, and that she was 
raised into an emblem of the Divine and the Infinite. 
Aditi is called the nabhir amritasya, umbilicus 
immortalitatis, the cord that connects the immortal 
and the mortal. Thus the poet exclaims (i. 24, 1): 
‘Who will give us back to the great Aditi (to the 
Dawn, or rather to her from whom we came), that 
I may see father and mother?’ Aditya, literally 
the son of Aditi, became the name, not only of the 
sun, but of a class of seven? gods, and of gods in 


1 Ry. viii. 25, 3: tA mata—mah? gagana aditih. Cf, viii. 101, 
Vbeeyis. 0724. 

? Boehtlingk and Roth derive aditi from a and diti, and diti from 
da or do, to cut; hence literally the Infinite. This is doubtful, but I 
know no better etymology. See Rigveda-Sanhita, translated by 
M. M., vol. i. p. 230. 

’ Ry. ix. 114,3; Devah Adityah yé sapta. 


620 CHAPTER XII. 


general, Rv. x. 63, 2: ‘Ye gods who are born of 
Aditi, from the water, who are born of the earth, 
hear my calling here. As everything came from 
Aditi, she is called not only the mother of Mitra, 
Varuna, Aryaman, and of the Adityas, but like- 
wise, in a promiscuous way, the mother of the 
Rudras (storms), the daughter of the Vasus, the 
sister of the Adityas.1 ‘Aditi is the sky? Aditi 
the air, Aditi is*mother, father, son; all the gods 
are Aditi, and the five tribes; Aditi is what is 
born, Aditi what will be born.’? In later times 
she is the mother of all the gods.* 

In an Essay on Comparative Mythology, published 
in the Oxford Essays of 1856, I collected a number 
of legends® which were told originally of the Dawn. 
Not one of the interpretations there proposed has 
ever, as far as I am aware, been controverted by 
facts or arguments. The difficulties pointed out 
by scholars such as Curtius and Sonne, I hope I 
have removed by a fuller statement of my views. 
The difficulty which I myself have most keenly felt 
is the monotonous character of the Dawn and Sun 
legends. ‘Is everything the Dawn? Is everything 
the Sun?’ This question I had asked myself many 
times before it was addressed to me by others. 
Whether, by the remarks on the prominent position 
occupied by the Dawn in the involuntary philosophy 
of the ancient world, I have succeeded in partially 

1 Ry. viii. 101, 15. 2 Cf. Rv. x. 68, 3. 

SeRavih 89am 0: * See Boehtlingk and Roth, s. v. 

> Kos and Tithonos; Kephalos, Prokris, and Eos; Daphne and 


Apollo; Urvast and Purtravas; Orpheus and Eurydice; Charis 
and Eros. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 621 


removing that objection, I cannot tell, but I am 
bound to say that my own researches lead me again 
and again to the Dawn and the Sun as the chief 
burden of the myths of the Aryan race. 


Athéné. 


I will add but one more instance before I return 
to the myth of Saranyt. We saw before how 
many names of different deities were taken from one 
and the same root, dyu or div. I believe that 
the root ah,t which yielded in Sanskrit Ahana 
(Aghnya, ie. Ahnya), the Dawn, ahan and ahar,? 
day, supplied likewise the germ of Athéné. First, as 
to letters, it is known that Sanskrit h is frequently 
the neutral exponent of guttural, dental, and labial 
soft aspirates. H is guttural, as in arh and argh, 


1 The root ah is connected with root dah, from which Daphne 
(cf. as, from which asru, and das, from which 6é«pv). Curtius men- 
tions the Thessalian form, davxvn for dapvn. (Griech. Ht. ii. 68.) He 
admits my explanation of the myth of Daphné as the dawn, but he says, 
‘If we could but see why the dawn is changed intoa laurel!’ Is it not 
from mere homonymy? The dawn was called 5apvn, the burning, so 
was the laurel, as wood that burns easily ; the two, as usual, were sup- 
posed to be one. See Htym. M. p. 250, 20; davypov eveavatov fvAor ; 
Hesych. davxpov evxavorov gvAov Sdpyns (1. edxavorov évdAov, Sapvny, 
Ahrens, Dial. Gree. ii. 532). Legerlotz, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vii. 
292. 

2 Is Achilleus the mortal solar hero, Aharyu? The change of r 
into 1 begins in the Sanskrit Ahaly4, who is explained by Kumarila 
as the goddess of night, beloved and destroyed by Indra. (See M.M.’s 
History of Sanskrit Literature,p.530.) As Indra is called ahalyéyai 
garah, it is more likely that she was meant for the dawn. Leuke, the 
island of the blessed, the abode of heroes after their death, is called 
Achilléa. Schol. Pind. Nem. 4, 49. Jacobi, Mythologie, p. 12. 
Elysium in the West (Gerhard, Griech. Mythologie, 581) is the same 
as Leuke. Achaios might be Ahasya, but Achivus points in another 
direction. 


622 CHAPTER XII. 


ranh and rangh, mah and magh. It is dental, 
as in vrvh and vrzdh, nah and naddha, saha and 
sadha, hita instead of dhita, hi (imperative) and 
dhi. It is labial, as grah and grabh, nah and 
nabhi, luh and lubh. Restricting our observation 
to the interchange of h and dh, or vice versd, we find, 
first, in Greek dialects, variations such as drnichos 
and drnithos, ichma, and tthma.t Secondly, the root 
ghar or har, which, in Sanskrit, gives us gharma, 
heat, is certainly the Greek ther, which gives us 
therméds, warm.” If it be objected that this would 
only prove an interchange between Sanskrit h and 
Greek 0 as an initial, but not as a final, we can appeal 
to Sanskrit guh, to hide, Greek kevitho; possibly to 
Sanskrit rah, to remove, Greek ldath.2 In the same 
manner, then, the root ah, which in Greek would 
regularly appear as ach, might likewise there have 
assumed the form ath. As to the termination, it is 
the same which we find in Seléné, the Sanskrit ana. 
Athéné, therefore, as far as letters go, would corre- 
spond to a Sanskrit Ahana, which is but a slightly 
differing variety of Ahan4a,* a recognised name of the 
dawn in the Veda. 

What, then, does Athéné share in common with the 
Dawn? The Dawn is the daughter of Dyu, Athéné, 
the daughter of Zeus. Homer knows of no mother 
of Athéné, nor does the Veda mention the name of a 


1 Cf. Mehlhorn, Griech. Grammatik, p. 111. 

? See Curtius, Griechische Etymologie, ii. 79. 

> Schleicher, Compendium, § 125, and p. 711. Raumer, Gesammelte 
Sprachwissenschaftliche Schriften, p. 84. 

* On changes like ana and dna, see Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 
p. 28. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 623 


mother of the Dawn, though her parents are spoken of 
in the dual (i. 123, 5). 

The extraordinary birth of Athéné, though post- 
Homeric, is no doubt of ancient date, for it seems no 
more than the Greek rendering of the Sanskrit phrase _ 
that Ushas, the Dawn, sprang from the head of 
Dyu, the mirdha divah, the East, the forehead of 
the sky. In Rome she was called Capta, i.e. Capita, 
head-goddess, in Messene Koryphasia,t in Argos 
Akria.? One of the principal features of the Dawn 
in the Veda is her waking first (i. 128, 2), and her 
rousing men from their slumber. In Greece, the 
cock, the bird of the morning, is next to the owl, 
the bird of Athéné. If Athéné is the virgin goddess, 
so is Ushas, the dawn, yuvatih, the young maid, 
arepasa tanva, with spotless body. From another 
point of view, however, husbands have been allotted 
both to Athéné and to Ushas, though more readily 
to the Indian than to the Greek goddess.? How 
Athéné, being the dawn, should have become the 
goddess of wisdom, we ‘can best learn from the 
Veda. In Sanskrit, budh means to wake and to 
know ;* hence the goddess who caused people to wake 
was involuntarily conceived as the goddess who caused 
people to know. Thus it is said that she drives away 
darkness, and that through her those who see little 


* On Athéné, é« xopupfs, see Bergk, Newe Jahrb. fiir Philologie, 
1860, pp. 295, 410. 

* Gerhard, Griechische Mythologie, § 253, 3 h. Preller, Rémische 
Mythologie, p. 260, n. 

° Gerhard, Griechische Mythologie, § 267, 3. 

* Rv. i. 29, 4: sasdntu tya#h dratayak bédhantu sfra 
ratayah. 


624. CHAPTER XII. 


may see far and wide (i. 118, 5). ‘We have crossed 
the frontier of this darkness,’ we read; ‘the dawn 
shining forth gives light’ (i. 92, 6). But light 
(vaytina) has again a double meaning, and means 
knowledge much more frequently and distinctly than 
light. In the same hymn (i. 92, 9) we read: 

Lighting up all the worlds, the Dawn, the eastern, the seer, 


shines far and wide; waking every mortal to walk about, she 
received praise from every thinker. 


‘Here the germs of Athéné are visible enough. That 
she grew into something very different from the 
Indian Ushas, when once worshipped as their tute- 
lary deity by the people of the Morning-city of 
Attica, needs no remark. But though we ought 
carefully to watch any other tributary that enters 
into the later growth of the bright heaven-sprung 
goddess, we need not look, I believe, for any other 
spring-head than the forehead of the sky, or Zeus. 


Minerva. 


Curious it is that in the mythology of Italy, 
Minerva, who was identified with Athéné, should 
from the beginning have assumed a name apparently 
expressive of the intellectual rather than the physical 
character of the Dawn-goddess. Minerva, or Me- 
nerva,* is clearly connected with mens, the Greek 
ménos, the Sanskrit manas, mind; and as the San- 
skrit siras, Greek kéras, horn, appears in Latin 
cervus, so Sanskrit manas, Greek ménos, in Latin 
Menerva. But it should be considered that mdne in 


" On Athéné, see M. M., Natural Religion, pp. 434 met 
? Preller, Rémische erg p. 258. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 625 


Latin is the morning, Mdnia, an old name of the 
mother of the Lares;! that mdnare is specially used 
of the rising sun;? and that Mdtuta, not to mention 
other words of the same kin, is the Dawn.? From 
this it would appear that in Latin the root man, 
which in the other Aryan languages is best known 
in the sense of thinking, was at a very early time 
put aside, like the Sanskrit budh, to express the 
revived consciousness of the whole of nature at the 
approach of the light of the morning; unless there 
was another totally distinct root, peculiar to Latin, 
expressive of that idea. The two ideas certainly seem 
to hang closely together; the only difficulty being 
to find out whether ‘wide awake’ led on to ‘know- 
ing, or vice versd. Anyhow I am inclined to admit 
in the name of Minerva some recollection of the idea 
expressed in Matuta; and even in promenervare, used 
in the Carmen saliare* in the sense of to admonish, I 
should suspect a relic of the original power of rousing. 


Ortygia. 


The tradition which makes Apollo the son of 
Athene,? though apparently modern and not widely 
spread, is yet by no means irrational, if we take 
Apollo as the sun-god rising from the brightness of 


1 Varro, LD. L. 9, 38, § 61, ed. Miller. 

2*Manat dies ab oriente.’ Varro, Z. L. 6, 2,52,§ 4. ‘Manare 
solem antiqui dicebant, quum solis orientis radii splendorem jacere 
ceepissent.’ Festus, p. 158, ed. Miiller. 

* In Oscan the Maato-s seem to be matutinal deities. Grassman, in 
Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xvi. 118. 

* Festus, p. 205. Paul. Diac. p. 123: ‘ Minerva dicta quod bene 
moneat.’ 


§ Gerhard, J, c. § 267, 3. 
II, 8s 


626 CHAPTER XII. 


the Dawn. Dawn and Night frequently exchange 
places, and though the original conception of the 
birth of Apollo and Artemis was no doubt that they 
were both children of the night, Lété or Latona, yet 
even then the place or the island in which they: are 
fabled to have been born is Ortygia, afterwards called 
Delos, or Delos, afterwards called Ortygia, or both 
Ortygia and Delos.1 Now Delos is simply the bright 
island; but Ortygia, though localised afterwards in 
different places,? is the dawn, or the dawn-land. 
Ortygia is derived from ortyx, a quail. The quail in 
Sanskrit is called vartika, i.e. the returning bird, 
one of the first birds that return with the return of 
spring. The same name, Vartika, is given in the 
Veda to one of the many beings delivered or revived 
by the Asvins, ie. by day and night; and I believe 
Vartika, the returning, is again one of the many 
names of the Dawn. The story told of her is very 
short. ‘She was swallowed, but she was delivered 
by the Asvins’ (i. 112, 8). ‘She was delivered by 
them from the mouth of the wolf’ (i. 117, 6; 116, 
14; x. 39, 18). ‘She was delivered by the Asvins 
from agony’ (i. 118, 8). All these are but legendary 
repetitions of the old saying, ‘the Dawn or the quail 
comes, ‘the quail is swallowed by the wolf, ‘the 
quail has been delivered from the mouth of the wolf.’ 
Hence Ortygia, the quail-land, the East, ‘ the glorious 
birth,’ where Leto was delivered of her solar twins, 
and Ortygia, a name given to Artemis, the daughter 
of Leto, as born in the East. 


1 Jacobi, p. 574, n. 
* Gerhard, Griechische Mythologie, § 335, 2. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 627 


The Twins. 


The Dawn, or rather the mother of the Dawn and 
of all the bright visions that follow in her train, took 
naturally a far more prominent place in the religious 
ideas of the young world than she who was called 
her sister, the gloaming, or the evening, the end of 
the day, the approach of darkness, of cold, and, it 
may be, of death. In the dawn there lay all the 
charms of a beginning and of youth, and, from one 
point of view, even the night might be looked upon 
as the offspring of the dawn, as the twin of the day. 
As the bright child waned, the dark child grew; as 
the dark flew away, the bright returned ; both were 
born of the same mother—both seem to have 
emerged together from the same brilliant womb of the 
East. It was impossible to draw an exact line, and 
to say where the day began and where it ended, or 
where the night began and where it ended. When 
the light enters into the darkness, as the Brahmans 
said, then the one twin appears; when the darkness 
enters the light, then the other twin follows. ‘The 
twins come and go, this was all the ancient poets 
had to say of the racing hours of day and night; it 
was the last word they could find, and, hke many a 
good word of old, this too followed the fate of all 
living speech ; it became a formula, a saw, a myth. 

We know who was the mother of the twins; it 
was the dawn, who dies in giving birth to morning 
and evening; or, if we adopt the view of Yaska, it 
was the night, who disappears when the new couple 
is born. She may be called by all the names of the 

$58 2 


628 CHAPTER XII. 


dawn, and even the names of the night might express 
one side of her character. Near her is the stand 
from whence the horses of the sun start on their 
diurnal journey ;'! near her is the stable which holds 
the cows, ie. the bright days following one after 
the other like droves of cattle, driven out by the Sun 
every morning to their pastures, carried off by rob- 
bers every night to their gloomy cave, but only to 
be surrendered by them again and again, after the 
never-doubtful battle of the early twilight. 


Yama and Yami. 


As the Dawn has many names, so her offspring too 
is polyonymous; and as her most general name is 
that of Yamasth,? or Twin-mother, so the most 
general name of her offspring too is Yamau, the 
twins. Now we have seen these twins as males, the 
Asvins, Indra and Agni, Mitra and Varuna. 
But we have also seen how the same powers might be 
conceived as female, as day and night, and thus we 
find them represented not only as sisters, but as 
twin-sisters. For instance, Rv. iii. 55, 11: 


The two twin-sisters* have made their bodies to differ; one 
of them is brillant, the other dark: though the dark one 
and the bright are two sisters, the great divinity of the gods 
is one. 


* Hence, I believe, the myth of Asvattha, originally horse-stand, 
then confounded with asvattha, ficus religiosa. See, however, Kuhn, 
Zeitschrift, i. p. 467. 

* Ry. iii. 39,3: Yamasts, yamau yamalau sfita iti yamastr 
ushosbhimanini devatéa. S& yam& yamalav Asvinav atro- 
shahkalesstta. 

* Yamy4, a dual in the feminine ; cf. v. 47, 5. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 629 


By a mere turn of the mythological kaleidoscope, 
these two sisters, day and night, instead of being the 
twin children of the dawn, appear in another poem 
as the two mothers of the sun. Rv, iii. 55, 6: 

This child which went to sleep in the West walks now alone, 
having two mothers, but not led by them; these are the works 
of Mitra and Varuna, but the great divinity of the gods 
Is one. 

In another hymn, again, the two, the twins, born 
here and there (ihehag ate), who carry the child, are 
said to be different from the mother (vy. 47, 5), and in 
another place one of the two seems to be called the 
daughter of the other (111. 55, 12). 

We need not wonder, therefore, that the same two 
beings, whatever we like to call them, were sometimes 
represented as male and female, as brother and sister, 
and again as twin-brother and twin-sister. In that 
mythological dialect the day would be the twin- 
brother, Yama, the night, the twin-sister, Yam?: 
and thus we have arrived at last at a solution of the 
myth which we wished to explain. A number of 
expressions had sprung up, such as ‘the twin-mother, 
ie. the Dawn; ‘the twins, i.e. Day and Night; 
‘the horse-children, or ‘horsemen, i.e. Morning 
and Evening; ‘Saranyt is wedded by Vivasvat,’ 
i.e. the Dawn embraces the sky; ‘Saranydt has 
left her twins behind,’ i.e. the Dawn has disappeared, 
it is day; ‘Vivasvat takes his second wife,’ ie. the 
sun sets in the evening twilight; ‘the horse runs 
after the mare, i.e. the sun has set. Put these 
phrases together, and the story, as told in the hymn 
of the Rigveda, is finished. The hymn does not 


630 CHAPTER XII. 


allude to Manu as the son of Savarna, it only 
calls the second wife of Vivasvat by that name, 
meaning thereby no more than what the word im- 
plies, a wife similar to his first wife, as the gloaming 
is similar to the dawn. The fable of Manu is pro- 
bably of a later date. For some reason or other, 
Manu, the mythic ancestor of the race of man, was 
called Savarni, meaning, possibly, the Manu of 
all colours, i.e. of all tribes or castes. The name 
may have reminded the Brahmans of Savarna, the 
second wife of Vivasvat, and as Manu was called 
Vaivasvata, the brilliant, afterwards the son of 
Vivasvat, Manu Savarni was naturally taken as 
the son of Savarna. This, however, I only give 
as a guess till some more plausible explanation of 
the name and myth of Manu Savarvni can be sug- 
gested. 


Yama, the Twin. 


But it will be necessary to follow still further the 
history of Yama, the twin, properly so called. In 
the passage examined before, Saranyt is simply 
called the mother of Yama, i.e. the mother of the 
twin, but his twin-sister, Yami, is not mentioned. 
Yet Yami, too, was well known in the Veda, and 
there is a curious dialogue between her and her 
brother, where she (the night) implores her brother 
(the day) to make her his wife, and where he de- 
clines her offer, because, as he says, ‘they have called 
it sin that a brother should marry his sister’ (x. 
10, 12). 

The question now arises whether Yama, meaning 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 631 


originally twin, could ever be used by itself as the 
name of a deity? We may speak of twins ; and we 
saw how, in the hymns of the Veda, several correla- 
tive deities are spoken of as twins; but can we speak 
of a twin, and give that name to an independent 
deity, worshipped without any reference to its com- 
plementary deity? The six seasons, each consisting 
of two months, are called the six twins (Rv. 1. 164, 
15); but no single month could properly be called 
the twin.! 

Nothing can be clearer than such passages as x. 
8, 4: 


Thou, O Vasu (sun), comest first at every dawn! thou wast 
the divider of the two twins, i.e. of day and night, of morning 
and evening, of light and darkness, of Indra and Agni, &c. 


Let us now look to a verse (Rv. i. 66, 4) where 
Yama by itself is supposed to mean the twin, and 
more particularly Agni. The whole hymn is ad- 
dressed to Agni, fire, or light, in his most general 
character. I translate literally: 


Like an army let loose, he wields his force, like the flame- 
pointed arrow of the shooter. Yama is born, Yama will be 
born, the lover of the girls, the husband of the wives. 


This verse, as is easily seen, is full of allusions, 
intelligible to those who listened to the poets, but to 
us perfect riddles, to be solved only by a comparison 
of similar passages, if such passages can be found. 
Now, first of all, I do not take Yama as the name of 
a deity, or as a proper name at all. But recollecting 


1 As to yamau and yamah, see Rv. x. 117, 9; v.57, 4; x. 18, 2. 


632 CHAPTER XII, 


the twinship of Agni and Indra, as representatives 
of day and night, I translate : 


(One) twin is born, (another) twin will be born, i.e. Agni, 
to whom the hymn is addressed, is born, the morning has 
appeared ; his twin, or, if you like, his other self, the evening, 
will be born. 


The next words, ‘ the lover of the girls,’ the ‘hus- 
band of the wives, contain, I believe, a mere repeti- 
tion of the first hemistich. The light of the morning, 
or the rising sun, is called the lover of the girls, 
these girls being the dawns, from among whom he 
rises. Thus (i. 152, 4) it is said: 

We see him coming forth, the lover of the girls,! the un- 
conquerable. 


Ry. i. 168, 8, the sun-horse, or the sun as horse, 
is addressed : 


After thee there is the chariot; after thee, Arvan, the man; 
after thee, the cows ; after thee, the host of the girls. 


Here the cows and the girls are in reality but two 
representations of the same thing—the bright days, 
the smiling dawns. 

Ry. 1. 15, 7, we read of ParAvrig, a name which, 
like AKyavana? and other names, is but a mask of 
the sun returning in the morning after his decline in 
the evening: 


He (the old sun), knowing the hiding-place of the girls, 
rose up manifest, he the escaper; the lame (sun) walked, the 
blind (sun) saw; Indra achieved this when fired with Soma. 


* Sayana rightly explains kaninam by ushasAm. 
* In i, 116, 10, it is said that the A svins restored the old Kyavana 
to be again the husband of the girls, 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 633 


The hiding-place of the girls is the hiding-place of 
the cows, the East, the home of the ever-youthful 
dawns; and to say that the lover of the girls? is 
there, is only a new expression for ‘the twin is born.’ 

Lover (garah), by itself, too, is used for the rising 
sun : 


Rigveda, vu. 9, 1: The lover woke from the lap of the 
Dawn. 

Rigveda, i. 92, 11: The wife (Dawn) shines with the light 
of the lover. 


What, then, is the meaning of ‘the husband of the 
wives’? Though this is more doubtful, I think it 
not unlikely that it was meant originally for the 
evening sun, as surrounded by the splendours of the 
oloaming, as it were by a more serene repetition of 
the dawn. The Dawn herself is likewise called the 
wife (iv. 52,1); but the expression ‘husband of the 
wives’ is in another passage clearly applied to the 
sinking sun. Rv. ix. 86, 82: ‘The husband of the 
wives approaches the end. ? If this be the right 
interpretation, ‘the husband of the wives’ would be 
the same as ‘the twin that is to be born’; and the 
whole verse would thus receive a consistent meaning : 


One twin is born (the rising sun, or the morning), another 
twin will be born (the setting sun, or the evening); the lover 
of the girls (the young sun), the husband of the wives (the 
old sun).° 


1 Paishan is called the lover of his sister, the husband of his mother 
(vi. 55, 4 and 5; x. 3, 3: svdsaram gArdh abhi eti paskat). 

2 Nishkrita, according to B, R., a rendezvous; but in our passage, 
the original meaning, to be undone, seems more appropriate. 

$ The following translations of this one line, proposed by different 
scholars, will give an idea of the difficulty of Vedic interpretation ; 


634, CHAPTER XII, 


Yama, the Setting Sun. 


There is, as far as I know, no other passage in the 
Rigveda where Yama, used by itself in the sense 
of twin, has been supposed to apply to Agni or the 
sun. But there are several passages, particularly in 
the last book, in which Yama occurs as the name of 
a single deity. He is called king (x. 14, 1); the de- 
parted acknowledge him as king (x. 16, 9). He is 
together with the Pitars, the fathers (x. 14, 4), with 
the Angiras (x. 14, 3), the Atharvans, Bhrigus 
(x. 14, 6), the Vasishthas (x. 15, 8). He is called 
the son of Vivasvat (x. 14, 5), and an immortal son 
of Yama is mentioned (i. 83, 5). Soma is offered 
to him at sacrifices (x. 14, 13), and the departed 
fathers will see Yama, together with Varuna (x. 14, 
7), and they will feast with the two kings (x. 14, 10). 
The king of the departed, Yama, is likewise the god 
of death (x. 165, 4)! and two dogs are mentioned who 
go about among men as his messengers (x. 14, 12). 
Yama, however, as well as his dogs, is likewise asked 
to bestow life, which originally could have been no 
more than to spare life (x. 14, 14; 14, 12). 


Rosen: ‘Sociate utique Agni sunt omnes res nate, sociatee illi sunt 
nasciture, Agnis est pronubus puellarum, maritus uxorum.’ 

Langlois: ‘Jumeau du passé, jumeau de lavenir, il est le fiancé des 
filles, et ’époux des femmes.’ 

Wilson: ‘Agni, as Yama, is all that is born; as Yama, all that 
will be born: he is the lover of maidens, the husband of wives.’ 

Kuhn: ‘The twin (Agni) is he who is born; the twin is what is to 
be born.’ 

Benfey: ‘A born lord, he rules over births; the suitor of maidens, 
the husband of wives.’ 

* Rv. i. 88, 5. The expression, ‘the path of Yama,’ may be used 
in an auspicious or inauspicious sense. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 635 


Is it possible to discover in this Yama, the god 
of the departed, one of the twins? I confess it 
seems a most forced and artificial designation ; and 
I should much prefer to derive this Yama from 
yam, to control. Yet his father is Vivasvat, and 
the father of the twins was likewise Vivasvat. 
Shall we ascribe to Vivasvat three sons, two called 
the twins, Yamau, and another called Yama, the 
ruler? It is possible, yet it is hardly credible; and 
I believe it is better to try to walk in the strange 
footsteps of ancient language and ancient thought, 
however awkward they may seem at first. Yama 
was the setting sun and the evening; the question 
is how he became the king of the departed and the 
god of death. 

As the East was to the early thinkers the source of 
life, the West was to them Nirriti, the exodus, the 
land of death. The sun, conceived as setting or dying 
every day, was the first who had trodden the path of 
life from East to West—the first mortal—the first to 
show us the way when our course is run, and our sun 
sets in the far West. Thither the fathers followed 
Yama; there they sit with him rejoicing, and thither 
we too shall go when his messengers (day and night, 
see p. 594) have found us out. These are natural 
feelings and intelligible thoughts. We find them 
among uncivilised and among civilised nations, we 
find them in ancient and modern times. We under- 
stand quite well what is meant when people say ‘the 
sun of my life is setting, or ‘my sun is setting. The 
Hervey islanders speak of old age as ‘a mountain- 
top, yellow with the rays of the setting sun. Natural 


636 CHAPTER XII, 


death with them is to follow in the track of the 
setting sun. ‘To recover from sickness is to go to the 
region of sunrise.! 

The Maoris have two proverbs. One is, ‘When 
one great Chief dies, another great Chief lives,’ the 
other proverb is, ‘The sun goes down, when its course 
is run. Sometimes the Maoris express their desire to 
go down with the sun, and as one of their songs says, 
‘Wait, wait awhile, O sun, and we will go down 
together.’ ” 

The question then is, may we suppose that similar 
thoughts and feelings passed through the minds of 
our forefathers when they changed Yama, the twin- 
sun, the setting sun, into the ruler of the departed 
and the god of death ? 

That Yama’s character is solar, might be guessed 
from his being called the son of Vivasvat. Vivas- 
vat, like Yama, is sometimes considered as sending 
death. Rigveda, viii. 67, 20: ‘May the shaft of 
Vivasvat, O Aditya, the poisoned arrow, not strike 
us before we are old !’ 


Yama, the God of Death. 


Yama is said to have crossed the rapid waters, 
to have shown the way to many, to have first known 
the path on which our fathers crossed over (x. 14, 1 
and 2). In a hymn addressed to the sun-horse, it is 
said that ‘Yama brought the horse, Trita harnessed 
him, Indra first sat on him, the Gandharva took 
hold of his rein.’ And, immediately after, the horse is 


1 W. W. Gill, Life in the Southern Isles, p. 29. 
* Life of Patuone, by C. O, Davis (Auckland, 1876), p. 132. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN, 637 


said to be Yama, Aditya, and Trita (i. 163, 2 and 
3). Again, of the three heavens, two are said to 
belong to Savitar, one to Yama (i. 35,6). Yama 
is spoken of as if admitted to the company of the 
gods (x. 185, 1). His own seat is called the house 
of the gods (x. 135, 7); and these words follow im- 
mediately on a verse in which it is said: ‘The abyss 
is stretched -out in the East, the out-going is in 
the West.’! 

These indications, though fragmentary, are suffi- 
cient to show that the character of Yama,2 such as 
we find it in the last book of the Rigveda, might 
well have been suggested by the setting sun, per- 
sonified as the leader of the human race, as himself 
a mortal, yet as a king, as the ruler of the departed, 
as worshipped with the fathers, as the first witness 
of an immortality to be enjoyed by the fathers, similar 
to the immortality enjoyed by the gods themselves. 
That the king of the departed should gradually have 
assumed the character of the god of death, requires 
no explanation. This, however, is the latest phase 
of Yama, and one that in the early portions of the 
Veda belongs to Varu a, who was, as we saw before, 
like Yama, one of the twins. 

The mother of all the heavenly powers we have just 
examined, is the Dawn with her many names, woAAGv 
dvoudtoyv poppy pia, Aditi, the mother of the gods, or 
Apya yosha, the water-wife, Sarany4, the running 

* Other passages to be consulted, Rv. i, 116, 2; vii. 38,9; ix. 68, 
3,9; x. 12,6; 13,2; 18,4; 53,3; 64,3; 123, 6. Also Paraskara, 
Grihya-sttras, translated by Oldenberg, pp. 343, 355. 


* This whole subject has lately been treated in full detail by J. Ehni, 
Der Vedische Mythus des Yama, 1890. 


638 CHAPTER XII. 


light, Ahana, the bright, Arguni, the brilliant, 
Urvasi, the wide, &e. Beyond the Dawn, however, 
another infinite power was suspected, for which 
neither the language of the Vedic Rishis, nor that 
of any other poets or piophets, has yet suggested a 
fitting name. 


Demeter Erinys. 


If, then, as I have little doubt, the Greek LHrinys is 
the same word as the Sanskrit Saranyt,! it is easy 
to see how, starting from a common thought, each 
deity assumed its peculiar aspect in India and in 
Greece. The Night was conceived by Hesiod as the 
mother of War, Strife, and Fraud, but she is like- 
wise called the mother of Nemesis, or Vengeance.” 
fKschylus calls the Erinyes the daughters of Night, 
and we saw before a passage from the Veda (vil. 
61, 5) where the Druh’s, the mischievous powers of 
Night, were said to follow the sins of man. ‘The 
Dawn will find you out’ was a saying but slightly 
tainted by mythology. ‘The Erinyes will haunt you’ 
was a saying which not even Homer would have un- 
derstood in its etymological sense. If the name of 
Erinys is sometimes applied to Démétér,* this is 
because Déé was Dyava, and Démétér, Dyava 
matar, the Dawn, the mother,* corresponding to 


1 The loss of the initial aspirate is exceptional, but, as such, con- 
firmed by well-known analogies. See Curtius, Griechische Ltymologie, 
ihegpo si, G09. 

2M. M.’s Essay on Comparative Mythology, p. 40. 

3 Pausanias, viii. 25 ;. Kuhn, J. e. i. 152. 

* See Pott, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vi. p. 118, n. Demeter is not 
Ge-meter, mother earth. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 639 


Dyaush pitar, the sky, the father. It cannot surely 
be mere accident that Hrinys Demeter, like Saranyt, 
was changed into a mare, that she was followed by 
Poseidon, as a horse, and that two children were born, 
a daughter (Despoina), and Areion. Poseidon, if he 
expressed the sun rising from the sea, would approach 
to Varuna, who, in one passage of the Veda, was 
called the father of the horse or of Yama. 


Solar Mythology. 


And now, after having explained the myth of 
Saranyt, of her father, her husband, and _ her 
children, in what, I think, was its original sense, it 
remains to state, in a few words, the opinions of other 
scholars who have analysed the same myth before, 
and have arrived at different conceptions of its 
original import. It will not be necessary to enter 
upon a detailed refutation of these views, as the 
principal difference between these and my own theory 
arises from the different points which we have chosen 
in order to command a view into the distant regions 
of mythological thought. I look upon the sunrise 
and sunset, on the daily return of day and night, 
on the battle between light and darkness, on the 
whole solar drama in all its details that is acted 
every day, every month, every year, in heaven and 
in earth, as the principal subject of early mythology. 
I consider that the very idea of divine powers sprang 
from the wonderment with which the forefathers of 
the Aryan family stared at the bright (deva) powers 
that came and went no one knew whence or whither, 
that never failed, never faded, never died, and were 


640 CHAPTER XII. 


called immortal, 1. e. unfading, as compared with the 
feeble and decaying race of man. I consider the 
regular recurrence of phenomena an almost indis- 
pensable condition of their being raised, through the 
charms of mythological phraseology, to the rank of 
immortals, and I give a proportionately small space 
to meteorological phenomena, such as clouds, thunder, 
and lightning, which, although causing for a time a 
violent commotion in nature and in the heart of man, 
would not be ranked together with the immortal 
bright beings, but would rather be classed either as 
their subjects or as their enemies. It is the sky that 
gathers the clouds, it is the sky that thunders, it is 
the sky that rains; and the battle that takes place 
between the dark clouds and the bright sun, which 
for a time is covered by them, is but an irregular 
repetition of that more momentous struggle which 
takes place every day between the darkness of the 
night and the refreshing light of the morning. 


Meteorological Mythology. 


Quite opposed to this, the solar theory, is that pro- 
posed by Professor Kuhn, and adopted by the most 
eminent mythologians of Germany, which may be 
called the meteorological theory. This has been well 
sketched by Mr. Kelly in his Indo-European Tra- 
dition and Folk-lore. 


Clouds (he writes), storms, rains, lightning, and thunder, 
were the spectacles that above all others impressed the imagin- 
ation of the early Aryans, and busied it most in finding 
terrestrial objects to compare with their ever-varying aspect. 
The beholders were at home on the earth, and the things of 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 641 


the earth were comparatively familiar to them; even the 
coming and going of the celestial luminaries might often be 
regarded by them with the more composure because of their 
regularity ; but they could never surcease to feel the liveliest 
interest in those wonderful meteoric changes, so lawless and 
mysterious in their visitations, which wrought such immediate 
and palpable effects, for good or ill, upon the lives and fortunes 
of the beholders. Hence these phenomena were noted ‘and 
designated with a watchfulness and wealth of imagery which 
made them the principal groundwork of all the Indo-European 
mythologies and superstitions. 


Professor Schwartz, in his excellent essays on 
Mythology, ranges himself determinately on the 
same side: 


If, in opposition to the principles which I have carried out 
in my book, ‘On the Origin of Mythology,’ it has been re- 
marked that in the development of the ideas of the Divine in 
myths, I gave too much prominence to the phenomena of the 
wind and thunderstorms, neglecting the sun, the following re- 
searches will confirm what I indicated before, that originally 
the sun was conceived implicitly as a mere accident in the 
heavenly scenery, and assumed importance only in a more 
advanced state in the contemplation of nature and the forma- 
tion of myths. 


These two views seem as diametrically opposed as 
two views of the same subject can possibly be. The 
one, the solar theory, looks to the regular daily revo- 
lutions in heaven and earth as the material out of 
which the variegated web of the religious mythology 
of the Aryans was woven, admitting only an inter- 
spersion here and there of the more violent aspects 
of storms, thunder and lightning; the other, the 


* Der heutige Volksglaube und das alte Heidenthum, 1862 (p. vii.). 
Der Ursprung der Mythologie, 1860. 


Ti fet 


642 CHAPTER XII. 


meteoric theory, looks upon clouds and storms and 
other convulsive aspects of nature as causing the 
deepest and most lasting impression on the minds 
of those early observers who had ceased to wonder at 
the regular movements of the heavenly bodies, and 
could only perceive a divine presence in the great 
strong wind, the earthquake, or the fire. 

In accordance with this latter view, we saw that 
Professor Roth explained Saranyt as the dark 
storm-cloud soaring in space in the beginning of all 
things, and that he took Vivasvat for the light of 
heaven.1 Explaining the second couple of twins 
first, he took them, the Asvins, to be the first 
bringers of light, preceding the dawn (but who are 
they ?), while he discovered in the first couple, simply 
called Yama, the twin-brother, and Yami, the 
twin-sister, the first created couple, man and woman, 
produced by the union of the damp vapour of the 
cloud and the heavenly light. After their birth he 
imagines that a new order of things began, and that 
hence, their mother—the chaotic, storm-tossed twi- 
light—was said to have vanished. Without laying 
much stress on the fact that, according to the Rig- 
veda, Saranyt became first the mother of Yama, 
then vanished, then bare the Asvins, and finally 
left both couples of children, it must be observed that 
there is not a single word? in the Rigveda pointing 
to Yama and Yami as the first couple of mortals— 


' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlindischen Gesellschaft, iv. p. 425. 

2 In the Atharva Veda, 18, 3, 18, an important passage, ‘ yo ma- 
mara prathamo marty4nam,’ was pointed out by Kuhn in Roth’s 
Nir. p. 188. See also Haug, Hssays, p. 234. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 643 


as the Indian Adam and Eve—or representing the 
first creation of man as taking place by the union of 
vapour and light. If Yama had been from the 
beginning the first created of men, surely the old 
Vedic poets, in speaking of him, could not have 
passed this over in silence. 


Mythology changed into History. 


Nor is Yima, in the Avesta, represented as the 
first man or as the father of all mankind. He is one 
of the first kings, and his reign represents the ideal of 
human happiness, when there was as yet neither 
illness nor death, neither heat nor cold ; but no more. 
The tracing of the further development of Yima in 
Persia was one of the last and one of the most. bril- 
hant discoveries of Eugene Burnouf. In his article, 
‘Sur le Dieu Homa,’ published in the Jowrnal Asia- 
tique, he opened this entirely new mine for researches 
into the ancient state of religion and tradition, com- 
mon to the Aryans before their schism. He showed 
that three of the most famous names in the epic poetry 
of the later Persians, Jemshid, Feridin, and Garshasp, 
can be traced back to three heroes mentioned in the 
Zend-Avesta as the representatives of three of the 
earliest generations of mankind, Vima - Kshaéta, 
Thraétana, and Keresaspa, and that the prototypes 
of these Zoroastrian heroes could be found again in 


1 Spiegel, Hrdn, p. 245. ‘ According to one account, the happiness 
of Jima’s reign came to an end through his pride and untruthfulness. 
According to the earlier traditions of the Avesta, Jima does not die, but, 
when evil and misery begin to prevail on earth, retires to a smaller space, 
a kind of garden of Eden, where he continues his happy life with those 
who remained true to him.’ 


Te 


64.4 CHAPTER XII. 


‘the Yama, Trita, and Krisasva of the Veda. He 
went even beyond this. He showed that, as in San- 
skrit, the father of Yama is Vivasvat, the father of 
Yima in the Avesta is Vivanghvat. He showed that 
as Thraétana, in Persia, is the son of Athwya, the 
patronymic of Trita in the Veda is Aptya. He 
explained the transition of Thraétana into Feridin 
by pointing to the Pehlevi form of the name, as given 
by Neriosengh, Phredun. Burnouf, again, it was 
who identified Zohdk, the tyrant of Persia, slain by 
Feridun, whom even Firdusi still knows by the name 
of Ash dahdék, with the Aji dahdka, the biting serpent, 
as he translates it, destroyed by Thraétana in the - 
Avesta. Nowhere has the transition of physical 
mythology into epic poetry—nay, history—been 
so luculently shown as here. JI may quote the 
words of Burnouf, one of the greatest scholars that 
France, so rich in philological genius, has ever 
produced :— 

Tl est sans contredit fort curieux de voir une des divinités 
indiennes les plus vénérées, donner son nom au premier 
souverain de la dynastie ario-persanne; c’est un des faits qui 
attestent le plus évidemment l’intime union des deux branches 
de la grande famille qui s’est étendue, bien des siécles avant 
notre ere, depuis le Gange jusqu’a l’Kuphrate.' 

Professor Roth has pointed out some more minute 
coincidences in the story of Jemshid, but his attempt 
at changing Yama and Yama into an Indian and 
Persian ddam, has proved a mistake. 

Professor Kuhn was right, therefore, in rejecting 
this portion of Professor Roth’s analysis. But, like 


* On the Veda and Zendavesta, by M. M.,p.31. 


MYTHS OF THE DAWN. 645 


Professor Roth, he takes Saranyt as the storm-cloud, 
and though declining to recognise in Vivasvat the 
heavenly light in general, he takes Vivasvat as 
one of the many names of the sun, and considers 
their first-born child, Yama, to mean Agni, the 
fire, or rather the lightning, followed by his twin- 
sister, the thunder. He then explains the second 
couple, the Asvins, to be Agni and Indra, the 
god of the fire and the god of the bright sky, 
and thus arrives at the following solution -of the 
myth :— 

After the storm is over, and the darkness which hid the single 
cloud has vanished, Savitar (the sun) embraces once more 
the goddess, the cloud, who had assumed the shape of a horse 
running away. He shines, still hidden, fiery and with golden 


arms, and thus begets Agni, fire; he lastly tears the wedding 
veil, and Indra, the blue sky, 1s born. 


The birth of Manu, or man, he explains as a 
repetition of that of Agni; and he looks upon Manu, 
or Agni, as the Indian Adam, and not, as Professor 
Roth, on Yama, the lightning. 

It is impossible, of course, to do full justice to the 
speculations of these eminent men on the myth of 
Saranyu by giving this meagre outline of their 
views. Those who take an interest in the subject 
must consult their treatises, and compare them with 
the interpretations which I have proposed. I con- 
fess that, though placing myself in their point of 
view, I cannot grasp any clear or connected train of 
thoughts in the mythological process which they 
describe. I cannot imagine that men, standing on a 
level with our shepherds, should have conversed 


646 CHAPTER XII. 


among themselves of a dark storm-cloud soaring in 
space, and producing by a marriage with light, or 
with the sun, the first human beings, or should have 
called the blue sky the son of the cloud because the 
sky appears when the storm-cloud has been either 
embraced or destroyed by the sun. However, it is 
not. for me to pronounce an opinion, and I must 
leave it to others, less wedded to particular theories, 
to find out which interpretation is more natural, 
more in accordance with the scattered indications of 
the ancient hymns of the Veda, and more consonant 
with what we know of the spirit of the most primitive 
ages of man. 


GHAR TE Reeox TL 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 


The Influence of Language. 


HAT I mean by Modern Mythology is a subject 
so vast and so important that for the present 
all I ean do is to indicate its character, and the wide 
limits within which its working may be discerned. 
After the definition which on several occasions I have 
given of Mythology, I need only repeat here that I 
include under that name all those cases in which lan- 
guage assumes an independent power, and reacts on 
the mind, instead of being, as it was intended to be, 
the mere realisation and outward embodiment of the 
mind. 

In the early days of language the play of mytho- | 
logy was no doubt more lively and more widely 
extended, and its effects were more deeply felt, than 
in these days of mature speculation, when words are 
no longer taken on trust, but are constantly tested 
by means of logical definition. When language 
sobers down, when metaphors become less bold and 
more explicit, there is less danger of speaking of the 
sun as a horse, because a poet had called him the 
heavenly racer, or of speaking of Selene as enamoured 


648 CHAPTER XIII. 


of Endymion, because a proverb had expressed the 
approach of night by the longing looks of the moon 
after the setting sun. Yet under a different form 
Language retains her silent charm; and if it no 
longer creates gods and heroes, it creates many a 
name that receives a similar worship. He who would 
examine the influence which words, mere words, have 
exercised on the minds of men, might write a history 
of the world that would teach us more than any 
which we yet possess. Words without definite mean- 
ings are at the bottom of nearly all our philosophical 
and religious controversies, and even the so-called 
exact sciences have frequently been led astray by the 
same Siren voice. 

I do not speak here of that downright abuse of 
language when writers, without maturing their 
thoughts and arranging them in proper order, pour 
out a stream of hard and misapplied terms which are 
mistaken by themselves, if not by others, for deep 
learning and height of speculation. This sanctuary 
of ignorance and vanity has been well-nigh de- 
stroyed; and scholars or thinkers who cannot say 
_ what they wish to say consecutively and intelligibly 
have little chance in these days, or at least in this 
country, of being considered as depositaries of mys- 
terious wisdom. Si non vis intelligi debes negligi. 
I rather think of words which everybody uses, and 
which seem to be so clear that it looks like imper- — 
tinence to challenge them. Yet, if we except the 
language of mathematics, it is extraordinary to 
observe how variable is the meaning of words, how 
it changes from century to century, nay, how it 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 649 


varies slightly in the mouth of almost every speaker. 
Such terms as Nature, Law, Freedom, Necessity, Body, 
Substance, Matter, Church, State, Revelation, Inspira- 
tion, Knowledge, Belief, are tossed about in the wars 
of words as if everybody knew what they meant, and 
as if everybody used them exactly in the same sense; 
whereas most people, and particularly those who 
represent public opinion, pick up these complicated 
terms as children, beginning with the vaguest con- 
ceptions, adding to them from time to time, perhaps 
correcting likewise at haphazard some of their in- 
voluntary errors, but never taking stock, never either 
inquiring into the history of the terms which they 
handle so freely, or realising the fulness of their 
meaning, according to the strict rules of logical de- 
finition. It has been frequently said that most con- 
troversies are about words. This is true; but it 
implies much more than it seems to imply. Verbal 
differences are not what they are sometimes supposed 
to be—merely formal, outward, slight, accidental 
differences, that might be removed by a simple ex- 
planation, or by a reference to ‘ Johnson’s Dictionary. ’! 
They are differences arising from the more or less 
perfect, from the more or less full and correct con- 
ception attached to words: it is the mind that is at 
fault, not the tongue merely. 

If a child, after being taught to attach the name of 
gold to anything that is yellow and glitters, were to 
maintain against all comers that the sun is gold, the 


1 « Half the perplexities of men are traceable to obscurity of thought, 
hiding and breeding under obscurity of Language.—Hdinb. Review, 
Oct. 1862, p. 378. 


650 CHAPTER XIII. 


child no doubt would be right, because in his mind 
the name ‘gold’ means something that is yellow and 
glitters. We do not hesitate to say that a flower is 
edged with gold—meaning the colour only, not the 
substance. The child afterwards learns that there 
are other qualities, besides its colour, which are 
peculiar to real gold, and which distinguish gold 
from similar substances. He learns to stow away 
every one of these qualities into the name gold, so 
that at last gold with him means no longer anything 
that glitters, but something that is heavy, malleable, 
fusible, and soluble in aqua regia;+ and he adds to 
these any other quality which the continued re- 
searches of each generation bring out. Yet in spite 
of all these precautions, the name gold, so carefully 
defined by the philosophers, will slip away into the 
crowd of words, and we may hear a banker discussing 
the market value of gold in such a manner that we 
can hardly believe he is speaking of the same thing 
which we last saw in the crucible of the chemist. 
We saw how the expression ‘golden-handed,’ as ap- 
plied to the sun, led to the formation of a story 
which explained the sun’s losing his hand, and 
having it replaced by an artificial hand made of gold. 
That is Ancient Mythology. Now if we were to say 
that of late years the supply of gold has been very 
much increased, and if from this we were to conclude 
that the increase of taxable property in this country 
was due to the discovery of gold in California, this 
would be Modern Mythology. We should use the 


? Cf. Locke, iii. 9, 17. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 651 


name gold in two different senses. We should use 
gold in the one case as synonymous with realised 
wealth, in the other as the name of the circulating 
medium. We should commit the same mistake as 
the people of old, using the same word in two slightly 
varying senses, and then confounding one meaning 
with the other. 

For let it not be supposed that even in its more 
naked form mythology is restricted to the earliest 
ages of the world. 


Popular Etymology. 


Though one source of mythology, that which arises 
from radical and poetical metaphor, is less prolific in 
modern than in ancient dialects, there is another 
agency at work in modern dialects which, though in 
a different manner, produces nearly the same results, 
namely, phonetic decay, followed by popular ety- 
mology. By means of phonetic decay many words 
have lost their etymological transparency; nay, 
words, originally quite distinct in form and meaning, 
have assumed occasionally the same form. Now, as 
there is in the human mind a craving after etymology, 
a wish to find out, by fair means or foul, why such a 
thing should be called by such a name, it happens con- 
stantly that words are still further changed in order 
to make them intelligible once more; or, when two 
originally distinct words have actually run into one, 
some explanation is required, and readily furnished, 
in order to remove the difficulty.’ 


’ Cf. Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iii. p. 300, seg.; and 
supra, p. 468. 


652 CHAPTER XIII. 


‘La Tour sans venin,’ which we mentioned before, 
is a case In point, but it is by no means the only 
case. 

According to Mr. R. M. Bache, of the U.S. Coast 
Survey, a hill, a few miles from New-Haven, com- 
monly called West Rock Ridge, was by a party of 
Swiss surveyors named Madame Mére’s Hill in 1836, 
probably in memory of Napoléon’s mother. It is now 
called Mad Mare’s Hill, ‘because a mare once went 
mad on it, and would let nobody come near it.’ 

Names of places are very liable to phonetic cor- 
ruption and legendary misinterpretation. 

A large rock in the midst of the Danube near 
Basiasch is called the Papagei, rocher pointu, appelé 
le Perroquet. Its real name is Baba-Kay, meaning 
the repentance of the old woman. The story told by 
tif® Walachians is that one of the fishermen had a 
very bad wife, and that when he could no longer 
endure her, he took her to this rock, and left her 
there alone to repent of her misdoings.1 

We are naturally surprised when we find the name 
of Theben given to a fortress on the Danube, near to 
where the Waag falls into that river. We are told, 
however, that its original name was Dewina or 
Dewiza, maiden.? 

The name of another well-known fortress, Metz, has 
often been explained as meaning Maid. But the old 
name of Metz was Mediodunum. 

The people of Wiesbaden have a tradition that the 
Neroberg in their neighbourhood was go e¢alled be- 


* K. Braun-Wiesbaden, Hine tiirkische Reise, p. 260, 1876. 
Ser peaLoos 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 653 
cause the Emperor Nero kept his wild animals there 
that were to devour the Christians. The innocent old 
name of the little hill was NVehrsbergq. 

In German, most people imagine that Stindfluth, 
the deluge, means the sin-flood ; but Stindfluth is but 
a popular etymological adaptation of sinfluot, the 
great flood. 

The name of Antichrist has been changed into 
Endekrist, as if it meant the Christ at the end of all 
things. 

Many of the old signs of taverns contain what we 
may call hieroglyphic mythology. There was a house 
on Stoken Church Hill, near Oxford, exhibiting on its 
sign-board, ‘Feathers and a Plum.’ The house itself 
was vulgarly called the Plum and Feathers :1 it was 
originally the Plwme of Feathers, from the crest of 
the Prince of Wales. 

A Cat with a Wheel is the corrupt emblem of St. 
Catherine’s Wheel; the Buli and Gate was originally 
intended as a trophy of the taking of Boulogne by 
' Henry VIII., it was the Boulogne Gate; and the 
Goat and Compasses have taken the place of the fine 
old Puritan sign-board, ‘God encompasseth us.’ ? 

There is much of this kind of popular mythology 
floating about in the language of the people, arising 
from a very natural and very general tendency, 


' Brady, Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 13. 
2 Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iii. p.804. Trench, English 
Past and Present, p. 223 : 
‘The George and Cannon =the George Canning. 
The Billy Ruffian=the Bellerophon (ship). 
The Iron Devil=the Hirondelle. 
Rose of the Quarter Sessions =la rose des quatre saisons,’ 


654, CHAPTER XIII. 


namely, from a conviction that every name must 
have a meaning. If the real and original meaning 
has once been lost, chiefly owing to the ravages of 
phonetic decay, a new meaning is at first tentatively, 
but very soon dogmatically, assigned to the changed 
name. 

At Lincoln, immediately below the High Bridge, 
there is an inn bearing now the sign of the Black 
Goats. It formerly had the sign of the Three Goats, 
a name derived from the three gowts or drains by 
which the water from the Swan Pool, a large lake 
which formerly existed to the west of the city, was 
conducted into the bed of the Witham below. A 
public-house having arisen on the bank of the prin- 
cipal of these three gowts, in honour, probably, of the 
work when it was made, the name became corrupted 
into the Three Goats—a corruption easily accomplished 
in the Lincolnshire dialect. 

In the same town, a flight of steps by which the 
ascent is gained from about midway of what is called 
the New Road to a small ancient gateway, leading 
towards the Minster Yard, is called the Greczan Stairs. 
These stairs were originally called the Greesen, the 
early English plural of a gree or step. When Greesen 
ceased to be understood, Stairs was added by way 
of explanation, and the Greesen Stairs were, by the 
instinct of popular etymology, changed into Grecian 
Starrs.” 

" See the Rev. Francis C. Massingberd, in the Proceedings of the 
Archeological Institute: Lincoln, 1848, p. 58. Gowt, sometimes pro- 
nounced gyte, is the same word as the German Grosse, gutter. 


* See the Rev. Francis C. Massingberd, in the Proceedings of the 
Archeological Institute: Lincoln, 1848, p. 59. The same learned 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 655 


The following local legend was sent me from 
Dorset : 


The Vale of Blackmore in Dorset was till a late’ period a 
vast forest, chiefly of oaks, the river Stour rinning through it. 
Hence there were many oak-fords, fords by the oaks, which 
name is retained in several villages called Ockford. Three 
of these le close together, Ockford Shilling, usually called 
Shillingston, Ockford Fitzpaine, usually called Fippen Ock- 
ford, and Childe Ockford. 

The popular etymology is that, many years ago, a child still 
living was found in or on the banks of the Stour, where the 
three parishes join, and a dispute arose which was bound to 
keep the foundling. After a while Childe Ockford took the 
main cost of it, Shilling Ockford paying a shilling, and Fippen 
Ockford five pence a week towards its maintenance. 

In fact, Shilling Ockford was the estate of the Eschellings, 
an old Dorset family, whose last representative Margaret 
Eschelling was a nun, and died at Shaftesbury some years 
after the suppression of the monasteries; Fippen Ockford 


antiquary quotes several passages in support of the plural greesen. Thus 
Acts xxi. 40, instead of ‘ And when he had given him license, Paul stood 
on the stairs,’ Wickliffe has : ‘Poul stood on the greezen.’ Shakespeare 
paraphrases grize (as he writes) by steps: 
‘Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence 
Which, as a grize or step, may help these lovers 
Into your favour.’ Othello, Act I, Se. iii. 


In Hackluy?s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 57, we read : ‘ The king of the said 
land of Java hath a most brave and sumptuous palace, the most loftily 
built that I ever saw, and it hath most high greeses, or stayers, to 
ascend up to the rooms therein contained.’ 

‘In expensis Stephani Austeswell, equitantis ad Thomam Ayleward, 
ad loquendum cum ipso apud Havant, et inde ad Hertynge, ad loquen- 
dum cum Domina ibidem, de evidenciis scrutandis de Pe de Gre pro- 
genitorum heredum de Husey, cum vino dato eodem tempore, xx. d. ob.’ 
From the Rolls of Winchester College, temp. Hen. IV., communicated 
by Rev. W. Gunner, in Proceedings of Archelog. Inst. 1848, p. 64. 
This Pé de Gré is the old form of pedigree, lit. the foot of the steps, 
le pied de Vescalier. Another explanation of pied is that it meant tree 
in old French. See Academy, Dec. 1885, pp. 418, 429. 


656 CHAPTER XIII. 


belonged to the Fitz Paines, and Childe Ockford may have 
been the manor occupied in the father’s lifetime by the 
Childe, eldest son of one of these families. 


We must, however, be on our guard. If there is a 
popular etymology which assigns new meanings to old 
names, there is also a popular etymology which as- 
signs, and not always correctly, old meanings to new 
names. I was deceived myself by an apparently very 
plausible explanation of the name of one of the col- 
leges of Oxford—Brasenose. Over the gate of the 
college there is a Brazen Nose, and the arms of the 
college display the same device, and have done so for 
several centuries. The charter entitling it ‘The 
King’s Hall and College of Brasenose, is dated 
January 15, 1512, and there was a Brasenose Hall 
before that time. This name used to be explained as 
a corruption of brasen-his, brasinium, or brew- 
house, but there is no authority for such a word as 
brasing in Old English. The French word brasserie 
stands for bracerie, which is derived from brace, 
malt (braciwm unde cerevisia fit). The matter is one 
for the antiquarian rather than for the etymologist, 
and we must wait for further evidence. 

Names or legends which have ceased to be intelli- 
gible, are frequently transferred from earlier to later 
times, and applied again and again to better known 
historical characters. Thus stories, told originally of 
some of their ancient deities, were repeated by the 
Germans, after their conversion to Christianity, by 
merely substituting the names of Christ or the 
Apostles for the beneficent, that of the Devil for the 
mischievous characters of their pagan mythology. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 657 


Popular heroes or illustrious sovereigns, such as 
Theodoric, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, nay, 
even Frederick the Great, served as attractive centres 
of popular traditions, the same story being grafted 
repeatedly on different stems, and slightly varying 
in its growth according to the varied circumstances 
under which it was revived, just as in our universi- 
ties the same jokes are repeated from generation to 
generation, but always applied to new professors. 

There is a legend that Charles the Fifth of F rance, 
and his men, who all fell in a great battle, were con- 
demned for their crimes to wander over the world on 
horseback, constantly employed in fighting battles. 
This troop of riders was called Maisnie Hellequin, in 
Latin familia Harlequini, a name preserved in the 
English Hurlewayne’s meyné, or Hurlewaynis kynne. 
Instead of Hellequin, Henequin, Herlequin, and other 
varieties also, are mentioned; but flellequin is, 
through Herlequin, traced back to Charlequin, or 
Charles Quint. 

Professor Skeat would like to go even a step 
further, and trace back all these words to a supposed 
Old Frisian helle kin (Anglo-Saxon helle cyn, Icelandic 
heljar kyn), the kindred of hell. This he supposes 
to have become li maisnie hierlekin, and to have been 
explained after a time by li maisnie Charles Quint. 
There is, however, no historical evidence whatever in 
support of hzerlekin as a corruption of helle kin. 

* Thomas Wright, Alliterative Poem on the Deposition of King 
Richard II., notes, p. 53; who quotes Grimm’s Mythologie, p- 527 ; 
Le Roux de Liney, Livre des Légendes, pp. 148-150 ; Michel Benoit, 


vol. ii. p. 336; Paulin Paris, Catalogue of French MSS. of the Biblio- 
théque du Rot, vol. i. pp. 322-825. 


Lis Uu 


658 CHAPTER XIII. 


Another sovereign, Henry V, has taken the place 
of a more prosaic predecessor if, as we are assured, 
the French Uhuwile d’Henry Cinq is a corruption of 
Vhuile de ricin, i.e. castor oil.? 

Another curious case of popular etymology occurs 
in the French cowrte-pointe. This word means a 
coverlet, though, as Littré remarks, there is neither 
courte nor pointe in it. It is in fact a corruption of 
the Latin calcitru or culcita puncta, or couverture 
piquée. In Old French this word appears as coutre- 
povnte, coulte-pointe, and coute-pointe, and as coutre, 
coulte, and coute seemed to have no meaning, they 
were changed into courte. 

But the same word has met with a still stranger fate 
in English, where it appears as cownterpane. Shake- 
speare still knows the word as counterpoint, which 
has been explained by the Old French contrepoineter, 
to work the back stitch. It ought, however, to be 
traced back to coutrepoincter, to quilt, while quilt 
also is really a corruption of culcita, in French cwilte, 
the same as coutre. 

The English proverb, ‘to know a hawk from a 
handsaw,’ was originally ‘to know a hawk from a 
hernshaw, a kind of heron.? 

Court Cards were originally Coat Cards. Arch- 
deacon Nares, in his Glossary, says : 


The figured cards, now corruptly called ‘Court Cards’— 
knaves—we trust, are not confined to courts, though kings 


* See an interesting article by B. M. Petilleau, Exeursion d@agre- 
ment a travers les mots. 

* Wilson, Pre-historic Man, p. 68. Cf. Pott, Doppelung, p. 81. 
Forstemann, Deutsche Volksetymologie, in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, vol. i. 
Latham, History of the English Language. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 659 


and queens belong to them. The proofs of it are abundant. 
One says: 

‘Tam a Coat Card indeed.’ 
He is answered : 

‘Then thou must needs be a knave, for thou art neither king 
nor queen.’—Rowley, When you see me, Se. 


‘We called him a Coat Card of the last order.’ 
B. Jonson, Staple of News. 


‘She had in her hand the Ace of Hearts, and a Coat Card.’— 
Chapman’s May Day. 


‘Here is a trick of discarded cards of us, 
We were ranked with coats as long as my old master lived.’ 
—Massinger’s Old Law, Act III. Se. 1. 


The change of name from coat to court cards probably dates 
about 1681, as Robertson’s Phrase Book, published in that year, 
gives both words. 


Barnacles. 


One of the most curious instances of the power of 
popular etymology and mythology is seen in the 
English Barnacle. It is not often that we can trace a 
myth from century to century through the different 
stages of its growth, and it may be worth while, 
therefore, to analyse this fable of the Barnacle more 
in detail. 

Barnacles, in the sense of spectacles, seem to be 
connected with the German word for spectacles, 
namely, Brille’. This German word is a corruption 
of beryllus. In a vocabulary of 1482 we find brill, 
parul, a masculine, a precious stone, shaped like 

* Cf. Grimm, D. W. s.v.‘ Brill” Mr. Wedgwood derives barnacles, 
in the sense of spectacles, from Limousin bourgna, to squinny ; Wall, 
boirgni, to look through one eye in aiming; Lang. borni, blind; borni- 


kel, one who sees with difficulty; berniques, spectacles. Vocab. du 
Berri. 


Us U2 


660 CHAPTER XIII. 


glass or ice (eise), berillus item or bernlein.! Sebas- 
tian Frank, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
still uses barill for eye-glass. The word afterwards 
became a feminine, and, as such, the recognised name 
for spectacles. 

In the place of beryllus, in the sense of precious 
stone, we find in Provengal beril/e;? and in the sense 
of spectacles, we find the Old French béricle.’ Béricle 
was afterwards changed to bésicle,s commonly, but 
wrongly, derived from bis-cyclus. 

In the dialect of Berri® we find, instead of béricle 
or bésicle, the dialectic form berniques, which reminds 
us of the German Bern-lein.® 

With this form berniques may be connected the 
English bernicle, and this bernicle would presuppose 
a medieval Latin bernicula. This bernicula again, 
would stand for beryllicula, the J being changed into 
4, to avoid repetition of J, as in melanconico for 
melancolico, in filomena for filomela. It is curious 
that in the same way as Brille in German is used in 
the sense of a piece of leather with spikes, put on the 
noses of young animals that are to be weaned, bar- 
nacles in English are squeezers put on the noses 
of horses to confine them for shoeing, bleeding, or 


* ¢Berillus (gemma, speculum presbiterorum aut veterum, d. i. 
brill).’ Diefenbach, Glossarium Latino-Germanicum. ‘Kise’ may be 
meant for crystal. 

* Raynouard, Lexique roman. 

3 Dict. du vieux Francais: Paris, 1766, s. v. 

* Dict. Prov.-Frangais, par Avril, 1839, s. v. 

> Voc. du Berri, s.v. 

° In the Dict. du vieux Frangais: Paris, 1766, bernicles occurs in 
the sense of rien, nihil. The Oxford Dictionary, s. v. barnacle, takes 
the sense of squeezers as the first, and derives it from Persian. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 661 


driving. Nevertheless barnacles in English seem un- 
connected with bernicles. The word occurs for a long 
time in the sense of squeezers or an instrument of 
torture only, and its application to spectacles is of 
a later date. In that case the etymology of the 
English. barnacles is unknown, for it seems as difficult 
to derive it with Skinner from bear and neck as to 
take it with Marsh as borrowed from Persian. 

Barnacle, in the sense of cirrhopode, has nothing to 
do either with barnacles, as squeezers, or with bur- 
nacles as spectacles. It is a diminutive of the Latin 
perna; pernacula being changed into bernacula 
Pliny * speaks of a kind of shells called perna, 
so called from their similarity with a leg of 
pork. 

The bodies of these animals are soft, and enclosed 
in a Case composed of several calcareous plates ; their 
limbs are converted into a tuft of jointed cirrhi or 
fringes, which can be protruded through an opening 
in the sort of a mantle which lines the interior of the 
shell. With these they fish for food, very much like 
a man with a casting-net; and as soon as they are 
immersed in sea-water by the return of the flood, their 


* Cf. Diez, Grammatik, p. 256. Bolso (pulsus), brugna and prugna 
(prunum), &. Berna, instead of Perna, is actually mentioned in the 
Glossarium Latino-Germanicum medie et infime etatis, ed. Diefen- 
bach ; also in Du Cange, berna, suuinbache. Skinner derives barnacle 
xrom bearn, filius, and A.S. dc, oak. Wedgwood proposes the Manx 
bayrn, a cap, as the etymon of barnacle; also barnagh, a limpet, and 
the Gaelic bairneach, barnacle ; the Welsh brenig, limpet. 

* Plin. H, Nat. 32, 55: ‘ Appellantur et pernze concharum generis, 
circa Pontias insulas frequentissime. Stant velut suillo crure longo in 
arena defixe, hiantesque, qua limpitudo est, pedali non minus spatio 
cibum venantur,’ 


662 CHAPTER XITI. 


action is incessant. They are generally found fixed 
on rocks, wooden planks, stones, or even on living 
shells; and after once being fixed, they never leave 
their place of abode. Before they take to this settled 
life, however, they move about freely, and, as it would 
seem, enjoy a much more highly organised state of 
life. They are then furnished with eyes, antenne, 
and limbs, and are as active as any of the minute 
denizens of the sea. 

There are two families of Cirrhopodes. The first, 
the Lepadide, are attached to their resting-place by 
a flexible stalk, which possesses great contractile 
power. The shell is usually composed of two trian- 
gular pieces on each side, and is closed by another 
elongated piece at the back, so that the whole con- 
sists of five pieces. 

The second family, the Balanide, or sea-acorn, has 
a shell usually composed of six segments, the lower 
part being firmly fixed to the stone or wood on which 
the creature lives. 

These creatures were known in England at all 
times, and they went by the name of Barnacles, i.e. 
Bernacule, or small muscles. Their name, though 
nearly identical in sound with Barnacles, in the sense 
of spectacles, had originally no connection whatever 
with that term, which was derived, as we found, 
from beryllus. 

But now comes a new claimant to this name of 
Barnacle, namely, the famous Barnacle Goose. There 
is a goose called Bernicla; and though that goose has 
sometimes been confounded with a duck (the Anas 
niger minor, the Scoter, the French Macreuse), yet 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 663 


there is no doubt that the Barnacle goose is a real 
bird, and may be seen drawn and described in any 
good Book on Birds.t. But though the bird is a real 
bird, the accounts given of it, not only in popular, but 
in scientific works, form one of the most extraordinary 
chapters in the history of Modern Mythology. | 

I shall begin with one of the latest accounts, taken 
from the Philosophical Transactions, No. 137, Janu- 
ary and February 1677-8. Here, in A Relation con- 
cerning Barnacles, by Sir Robert Moray, lately one of 
His Majesty’s Council for the Kingdom of Scotland, 
we read (p. 925) : 


In the Western Islands of Scotland much of the Timber, 
wherewith the Common people build their Houses, is such as 
the West-Ocean throws upon their Shores. The most ordinary 
Trees are Firr and Ash. They are usually very large, and with- 
out branches ; which seem rather to have been broken or worn 
off than cut ; and are so Weather-beaten, that there is no Bark 
left upon them, especially the Firrs. Being in the Island of 
East, I saw lying upon the shore a cut of a large Firr-tree 
of about 24 foot diameter, and 9 or 10 foot long; which had 
lain so long out of the water that it was very dry: And most of 
the Shells, that had formerly cover’d it, were worn or rubb’d 
off. Only on the parts that lay next the ground, there still 
hung multitudes of little Shells; having within them little 
Birds, perfectly shap’d, supposed to be Barnacles. 


1 Linneus describes it, sub ‘Aves, Anseres,’ as No. 11, Bernicla, 
A, fusca, capite collo pectoreque nigris, collarialbo. Branta s. Bernicla. 
Habitat in Europa boreali, migrat super Sueciam.’ 

Willoughby, in his Ornithology, book iii, says: ‘I am of opinion 
that the Brant-Goose differs specifically from the Bernacle, however 
writers of the History of Birds confound them, and make these words 
synonymous.’ “ Mr. Gould, in his Birds of Europe, vol. v, gives a 
drawing of the Anser leucopsis, Bernacle Goose, l’oie bernache, sub No. 
350; and another of the Anser Brenta, Brent Goose, Voie cravant, sub 
No. 352, 


664. CHAPTER XIII. 


The Shells hung very thick and close one by another, and 
were of different sizes. Of the colour and consistence of 
Muscle-Shells, and the sides or joynts of them joyned with such 
a kind of film as Muscle-Shells are; which serves them for a 
Hing to move upon, when they open and shut... . 

The Shells hang at the Tree by a Neck longer than the Shell. 
Of a kind of Filmy substance, round, and hollow, and creassed, 
not unlike the Wind-pipe of a Chicken ; spreading out broadest 
where it is fastened to the Tree, from which it seems to draw 
and convey the matter which serves for the growth and vege- 
tation of the Shell and the little Bird within it. 

This Bird in every Shell that I opened, as well the least as 
the biggest, I found so curiously and compleatly formed, that 
there appeared nothing wanting, as to the internal parts, for 
making up a perfect Seafowl: every little part appearing so 
distinctly, that the whole looked like a large Bird seen through 
a concave or diminishing Glass, colour and feature being every 
where so clear and neat. The little Bill like that ofa Goose, 
the Eyes marked, the Head, Neck, Breast, Wings, Tail, and 
Feet formed, the Feathers every where perfectly shap’d, and 
blackish coloured; and the Feet like those of other Water- 
fowl, to my best remembrance. All being dead and dry, I 
did not look after the Internal parts of them. ... Nor did 
I ever see any of the little Birds alive, nor met with any body 
that did. Only some credible persons have assured me they 
have seen some as big as their fist. 


Here, then, we have, only 200 years ago, a witness 
who, though he does not vouch to having seen the 
actual metamorphosis of the Barnacle shell into the 
Barnacle goose, yet affirms before a scientific public 
that he saw within the shell the bill, the eyes, head, 
neck, breast, wings, tail, feet, and feathers of the 
embryo bird. 

As we go back, witnesses become more frequent. 
In 1653, Walton, in the Angler, p. 189, speaks of bar- 
nacles and young goslings, bred by the sun’s heat and 
the rotten planks of an old ship, and hatched of trees. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 665 


In the Hukluyt Voyages, ii. 1. 68, in the year 1599, 
we are informed ‘that certain trees stand upon the 
shore of the Ivish sea, having fruit like unto a gourd, 
which ...do fall into the waters and become birds 
called Barnacles,’ 

Florio, in 1598, speaks of ‘Anitra ... the birde that 
breedes of a barnikle hanging upon old ships.’ 

Campion, in 1581, in his History of Ireland, iii. 
(1633), p. 10, mentions barnacles, ‘ thousands of which 
are noted along the shoares hanging by the beakes 
about the edges of putrified timber, which in processe 
taking lively heate of the Sunne, become water-foules.’ 

John Gerarde, of London, Master in Chirurgerie, 
gives us in his Herball, published in 1597, a lively 
picture of the tree, with birds issuing from its 
branches, swimming away in the sea or falling dead 
on the land, and he adds the following description 
(p. 1891): 


There are founde in the north parts of Scotland, and the 
Nands adjacent, called Orchades, certaine trees, whereon doe 
growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet ; 
wherein are conteined little living creatures ; which shels in 
time of maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little 
living foules, whom we call Barnakles, in the north of England 
Brant Geese, and in Lancashire tree Geese ; but the other that 
do fall upon the land, perish and come to nothing: thus much 
by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of 
those parts, which may very well accord with truth. 

But what our eies have seene, and hands have touched, we 
shall declare. There is a small Ilande in Lancashire called 
the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken peeces of 
old and brused ships, some whereof have beene cast thither 
by shipwracke, and also the trunks or bodies with the branches 
of old and rotten trees, cast up there likewise: whereon is 
found a certaine spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto 


666 CHAPTER XIII. 


Fig. 28. 


SS 


MAMA 


\ SS eS 
‘ ee 
LY BEE 
p EE We eee 


COPIED FROM GERARDE’S ‘ HERBALL,’ 


certaine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper 
pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is conteined a thing 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 667 


in forme like a lace of silke finely woven, as it were together, 
of a whitish colour; one ende whereof is fastened unto the 
inside of the shell, even as the fish of Oisters and Muskles are ; 
the other ende is made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or 
lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a 
Bird: when it is perfectly formed, the shel gapeth open, and 
the first thing that appeereth is the foresaid lace or string; 
next come the legs of the Birde hanging out; and as it 
groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length 
it is all come foorth, and hangeth only by the bill; in short 
space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the 
sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a foule, bigger 
than a Mallard, and lesser than a Goose; having blacke legs 
and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in 
such manner as is our Magge-Pie, called in some places a Pie- 
Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name 
_ then a tree Goose; which place aforesaide, and all those parts 
adjoining, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best 
is bought for three pence: for the truth heerof, if any doubt, may 
it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the 
testimonie of good witnesses. 


That this superstition was not confined to England, 
but believed in by the learned all over Europe, we 
learn from Sebastian Munster, in his Cosmographia 
Universalis, 1550, dedicated to Charles V. He tells 
the same story. without omitting the picture; and 
though he mentions the sarcastic remark of Mneas 
Sylvius, about miracles always flying away to more 
remote regions, he himself has no misgivings as to 
the truth of the bird-bearing tree, vouched for, as he 
remarks, by Savo Grammaticus (died 1204). This is 
what he writes :— 


In Scotia inveniuntur arbores, que producunt fructum foliis 
conglomeratum : et is cum opportuno tempore decidit in sub- 
jectam aquam, reviviscit convertiturque in avem vivam, quam 
vocant anserem arboreum., Crescit et hec arbor in insula 


668 CHAPTER XIII. 


Pomonia, que haud procul abest a Scotia versus acquilonem. 
Veteres quoque Cosmographi, preesertim Saxo Grammaticus men- 
tionem faciunt hujus arboris, ne putes esse figmentum a novis 
scriptoribus excogitatum.} 


The next account of these extraordinary geese I 
shall take from Hector Boece (1465-1536), who in 
1527 wrote his history of Scotland in Latin, which 
soon after was translated into English. The history 
is preceded by a Cosmography and Description of 
Albion, and here we read, in the fourteenth chap- 
ter: ? 


Of the nature of claik geis, and of the syndry maner of thair 
procreation, And of the Ile of Thule, capitulo xiiii. 

Restis now to speik of the geis generit of the see namit 
clakis. Sum men belevis that thir clakis growis on treis be 
the nebbis. Bot thair opinioun ig vane. And becaus the 
nature and procreatioun of thir clakis is strange, we have 
maid na lytyll lauboure and deligence to serche ye treuth and 
verite yairof, we have salit throw ye seis quhare thir clakis ar 
bred, and I fynd be gret experience, that the nature of the 
seis 1s mair relevant caus of their procreatioun than ony uthir 
thyng. And howbeit thir geis ar bred mony syndry wayis, 
thay ar bred ay allanerly by nature of the seis. For all treis 
that ar cassin in the seis be proces of tyme apperis first worm- 
eetin, and in the small boris and hollis thairof growis small 
wormis. First thay schaw their heid and feit, and last of 
all thay schaw thair plumis and wyngis. Finaly quhen thay 


* Seb. Munster, p. 49. TI have never been able to find the passage in 
Saxo Grammaticus. Albertus Magnus also, in the middle of the 13th 
century, knew the story. He calls the creatures barbates, which may 
be meant for barbiates; see pp. 677, 681. 

* The hystory and Chroniclis of Scotland, with the Cosmography and 
dyscription thairof, compilit be the noble clerk maister Hector Boece 
channon of Aberdene. Translatit laitly in our vulgar and commoun 
langage, be maister Joline Bellenden Archedene of Murray, And Im- 
prentit in Edinburgh, be me Thomas Davidson, prenter to the Kyngis 
nobyll grace’ (about 1540). 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 669 


ar cumyn to the just measure and quantite of geis, thay fle in 
the aire, as othir fowlis dois, as was notably provyn in the yeir 
of god ane thousand iiii hundred Ixxxx in sicht of money 
pepyll besyde the castell of Petslego, ane gret tre was brocht 
be alluvion and flux of the see to land. This wonderfull tre 
was brocht to the lard of the ground, quhilk sone efter gart 
devyde it be ane saw. Apperit than ane multitude of wormis 
thrawing thaym self out of syndry hollis and boris of this tre. 
Sum of thaym war rude as thay war but new schapin. Sum 
had baith heid, feit, and wyngis, bot they had no fedderis. 
Sum of thaym war perfit schapin fowlis. At last the pepyll 
havand ylk day this tre in mair admiration, brocht it to the 
kirk of Sanct Androis besyde the town of Tyre, quhare it 
remains yet to our dayis, And within two yeris efter hapnit 
sic ane lyk tre to cum in at the firth of Tay besyde Dunde 
wormeetin and hollit full of young geis in the samyn maner, 
Siclike in the port of Leith beside Edinburgh within few yeris 
efter hapnit sic ane lyke cais. Ane schip namit the Christofir 
(efter that scho had lyin iii yeris at ane ankir in ane of thir 
His, wes brocht to leith. And becaus hir tymmer (as apperit) 
failyeit, sho was brokin down. Incontinent apperit (as afore) 
al the inwart partis of hir wormeetin, and all the hollis thairof 
full of geis, on the samyn maner as we have schawin. Attoure 
gif ony man wald allege be sane argument, that this Christofer 
was maid of fir treis, as grew allanerly in the Ilis, and that all 
the rutis and treis that growis in the said Ilig ar of that nature 
to be fynaly be nature of the seis resolvit in geis, We preif the 
cuntre thairof be ane notable example schawin afore our ene. 
Maister Alexander Galloway person of Kynkell was with ws in 
thir Ilis, gevand his mynd with maist ernist besynes to serche 
the verite of thir obscure and mysty dowtis. And be adventure 
hiftit up ane see tangle hyngand full of mussill schellis fra the 
rute to the branchis. Sone efter he opnit ane of thir mussyll 
schellis, bot than he was mair astonist than afore. For he saw 
na fische in it bot ane perfit schapin foule smal and gret ay 
effering to the quantite of the schell. This clerk knawin ws 
richt desirus of sic uncouth thingis, come haistely with the 
said tangle, and opnit it to ws with all circumstance afore re- 
hersit. Be thir and mony othir resonig and examplis we can 


670 CHAPTER XIII. 


not beleif that thir clakis ar producit be ony nature of treis or 
rutis thairof, but allanerly by the nature of the Occeane see, 
quhilk is the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis. 
And becaus the rude and ignorant pepyl saw oftymes the frutis 
that fel of the treis (quhilkis stude neir the see) convertit within 
schort tyme in geis, thai belevit that thir geis grew apon the 
treis hingand be thair nebbis siclik as appillis and uthir frutis 
hingis be thair stalkis, bot thair opinioun is nocht to be sustenit. 
For als sone as thir appillis or frutis fallis of the tre in the see 
flude, thay grow first wormeetin. And be schort process of tyme 
ar alterat in geis. 


About 1400 Maundeville, writing of the Bernakes, 
says : ‘In oure countree weren trees, that beren a fruyt, 
that. becomes briddes fleeynge.’ 

In 1887 Trevisa (Hzgden Roll Series, 1. 335) relates : 
‘There beeth bernakes foules liche to wylde gees; 
kynde bryngeth hem forth wonderliche out of trees.’ 

On an old Catalan Map (A.D. 1375), published in the 
Notices et Hatraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque 
du Roi, vol. xiv, by MM. Buchon and Tastu, there is 
the following note on Ireland: 

Encara mes, hi a arbres als quals augels hi sont portats axi 


con a figam madura. (Bien plus, il y a des arbres qui portent 
des oiseaux comme d’autres arbres portent des figues mires.) 


The editor adds: 


Fazio degli Uberti, amplificateur et traducteur a la fois de 
Solinus, semble avoir servi de guide au redacteur des petites 
légendes écrites sur l’Atlas Catalan. Fazio écrivait son poeme 
Il Dittamondo vers les années 1355-1367. On lt (cap. xxii, 
lib. 1v):— . 

Non diedi fé, ma fama eé tra costoro 
Ch’arbor vi son di tanta maravigha 
Che fanno uccelli, e questo é il frutto loro.' 


1 Voyez encore Minster et Fr. de Belle-Forest, Cosmographie unt- 
verselle, p. 800, ed. de 1575. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 671 


The Jews also seem to have been interested in this 
question, which touched them by raising a doubt 
whether Barnacle geese should be killed as flesh or as 
fish. Mordechai (Riva, 1559, leaf 142 a) asks whether 
these birds are fruits, fish, or flesh, i.e. whether they 
must be killed in the Jewish way, as they would if 
they were flesh. He describes them as birds which 
grow on trees, and he says that Rabbi Jehudah of 
Worms (died 1216) used to say that he had heard from 
his father, Rabbi Samuel of Speyer (about 1150), that 
Rabbi Jacob Tham of Ramerii (died 1171, the orand- 
son of the great Rabbi Rashi, about 1140) had decided 
that they must be killed as flesh. This would carry 
the legend back to the twelfth century ; and it is cer- 
tain, at all events, that Rabbi Isaak of Corbeil, in his 
‘Sofer Mizwoth Katan’ (1277) prohibited the eating 
of Barnacle geese altogether, because they were neither 
flesh nor fish. 

The ‘ Zohar’ again, which is supposed to have been 
compiled, not to say forged, by its first editor, Moses 
ben Shem Tob de Leon, in the latter half of the 
thirteenth century, states that Rabbi Avé had seen 
trees whose branches became birds which grew out of 
them. 

In the thirteenth century the legend seems widely 
spread all over Europe. Vincentius Bellovacensis 
(1190-1264), in his Speculum Nature xvii. 40 (not as 
usually quoted xvi. 40), states that Pope Innocent III, 
at the General Lateran Council, 1215, had to prohibit 
the eating of Barnacle geese during Lent. He writes: 


* See Monatsschrift fiir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 
ed. Frankel. Graetz, 1869, Februar. 


672 CHAPTER XIII. 


Barliates sant aves de ligno crescentes, quas vulgus bernestas 
sive bernekas appellat. Fertur enim quod lignum de abiete 
marinis aquis incidens quum successu temporis putrescere 
ceperit, humorem ex se crassum emittit: ex quo densato for- 
mantur parve species avium ad magnitudinem alaudarum. 
Primumque sunt nude. Deinde maturantes plumescunt ac 
rostris ad lignum pendentes per mare fluitant usque ad maturi- 
tatem, donec se commorantes abrumpant sicque crescant et 
roborentur usque ad debitam formam. Has multas et ipsi 
vidimus virosque fide dignos qui eas adhuc pendentes se vidisse 
testati sunt. Anseribus minores sunt, colorem habent cinereum 
ac nigrum ; pedes ut anates, sed nigros. De his autem Jacobus 
Achonensis episcopus in Orientali Historia loquens dicit quod 
arbores sunt super ripas maris, de quibus he procreantur, rostris 
infixis arboribus dependentes. Tempore vero maturitatis ex 
arboribus decidunt, ac per incrementa perficientes sicut aves 
ceterze volare incipiunt. Verumtamen nisi decidentes cito 
aquam invenerint, vivere non possunt, quum in aquis est nutri- 
mentum earum et vita. Notandum autem quod non in ramorum 
summitatibus, sed in arborum corticibus ac stipitibus pendent. 
Crescunt autem arboris humore et roris infusione, donec habentes 
plumas ac robur vite corticibus abrumpantur. De his itaque 
certum est quod in orbe nostro circa Germaniam nec per coitum 
signunt nec generantur. Sed nec earum coitum apud nos ullus 
hominum vidit. Unde et carnibus earum in XL nonnulli etiam 
Christiani in nostra etate in locis ubi avium hujusmodi copia 
est uti solebant. Sed Innocentius papa tertius in Lateranensi 
Concilio generali hoe ultra fieri vetuit. Hee volucres herbis et 
graminibus (ut anseres), vivunt, potum vero differre sicca come- 
dentes nullatenus possunt. 


The Jacobus Achonensis, episcopus, whom Vincen- 
tius quotes, is Jacob de Vitriaco (died in 1244). In his 
‘Historia Orientalis,’ cap. 91, he gives the following 
account : 


In quibusdam partibus Flandrie aves ex arboribusprocreantur 
rostris arboribus infixis dependentes; postquam autem tempus 
maturitatis advenerit, ex ramis statim decidunt, et sicut alive 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 673 


volucres volare incipiunt. Carnis autem earum in quadragesima 
manducant, nee aliqua admiratione ducuntur qui talia videre 
frequenter consueverunt,. 


The chief authority, however, of Vincentius Bello- 
vacensis is Thomas Cantimpratensis, the famous author 
of the Bonum Universale de Apibus. He was like- 
wise the author of the Liber de Naturd Rerum, which 
has never been published, though it was one of the 
principal storehouses for those who wrote on natural 
history during the Middle Ages. He was a pupil of 
Altertus Magnus. His book, De Naturd Rerum, was 
written about 1230-1244; he says himself that he 
Spent nearly fifteen years over it. In a German 
translation of his work by Konrad von Meggenberg 
(ed. Pfeiffer, Stuttgart, 1861), we find the following 
short account of our bird, there called the Bachat:— 


Bachadis haizt ain bachad und haizt etswA ain wek. dag ist 
ain vogel der wehst von holz, und das holz hat vil ast an im, 
dar auz die végel wachsent, also daz ir zemél vil an dem paum 
hangt, die végel sint klainer, wan die gens und habent fiisz 
sam die dnten, sie sint aber swarz an der varb reht sam 
aschenvar, si hangent an den paumen mit den snibeln und 
hangent an den rinden und an den stammen der paum, si 
vallent pei zeit in daz mer und wachsent auf dem mer, unz si 
beginnent ze fliegen. etlaich laut azen die végel, aber Inno- 
centius der vierd pabist des namen verpdot die selben vogel in 
einem concili ze Lateran, 


In the beginning of the thirteenth century, and 
before the Lateran Council, Gervasius of Tilbury 
mentions the same story with greater detail, and 
localises it in England. In his Otia Imperialia 
(written about 1211) he says (iii. 128): 


De avibus ex arboribus nascentibus, cum secundum insitam 
LT: XOX 


674: CHAPTER XIII. 


primam creationis naturam ex primis generantibus animalia 
prodeant per generationem et corruptionem, novum et inau- 
ditum est apud omnes pereque nationes quod in quadam 
majoris Britannia parte quotidianum est. Hcce enim in ar- 
chiepiscopatu Cantuariensi, comitatu Cantie, ad confinium ab- 
batie de Faverhesham in littore maris arbuscule nascuntur 
ad quantitatem salicum. Ex istis nodi pullulant velut future 
germinationis pronuntii, cumque secundum tempora creationis 
excreverint, formantur in aviculas, que post dies nature datos 
rostro dependent, et vivificatee, facta leni alarum succussatione 
quasi puerperio consummato, in mare decidunt, et quandoque 
marinis fluctibus exposite, humanis contactibus subtrahuntur. 
Aves iste ad quantitatem modicorum anserum crescunt, pennis 
varlis et aucinis intermixte. Quadragesimali tempore assate 
comeduntur, considerata potius ad hoc nativa processione, quam 
carnis sapiditate. Avem vulgus barnetam nominat. 


Nay, even as far back as the twelfth century we 
find, in the time of Henry II. (1154-89), the same 
story, and even then so firmly established that 
Giraldus Cambrensis found it necessary to protest 
against the custom then prevailing of eating these 
Barnacle geese during Lent, because they were not 
birds but fishes. This is what Giraldus says in his 
Topographia Hibernic :* 


' Silvester Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernia, in Anglica, 
Normannica, Hibernica, Cambrica, a veteribus scripta. Frankofurti, 
1603, p. 706 (under Henry ITI., 1154-89). 

‘Sunt et aves hic multe que Bernace vocantur: quas mirum in 
modum contra naturam natura producit: Aucis quidem palustribus 
similes, sed minores. Ex lignis namque abiegnis per equora devolutis, 
primo quasi gummi nascuntur. Dehinc tamquam ab alga ligno co- 
heerente conchylibus testis ad liberiorem formationem incluse, per rostra 
dependent: et sic quousque processu temporis firmam plumarum ves- 
tituram indutze vel in aquas decidunt, vel in aéris libertatem volatu se 
transferunt, ex succo ligneo marinoque occulta nimis admirandaque 
seminii ratione alimenta simul incrementaque suscipiunt. Vidi muito- 
ties oculis meis plus quam mille minuta hujusmodi avium corpuscula, in 
littore maris ab uno ligno dependentia testis inclusa et jam formata. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 675 


There are in this place many birds which are called Bernace: 
against nature, nature produces them in a most extraordinary 
way. They are like marsh-geese, but somewhat smaller. They 
are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at 
first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as 
if from a seaweed attached to the timber, surrounded by shells, 
in order to grow more freely. Having thus, in process of time, 
been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into 
the water or fly freely away into the air. They derive their 
food and growth from the sap of the wood or the sea, by a 
secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have 
frequently, with my own eyes, seen more than a thousand of 
these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore 
from one piece of timber, enclosed in shells, and already 
formed. They do not breed and lay eggs, like other birds; 
nor do they ever hatch any eges; nor do they seem to build 
nests in any corner of the earth. Hence bishops and clergymen 
in some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine of these birds at 
the time of fasting, because they are not flesh, nor born of flesh. 
But these are thus drawn into sin; for if a man during Lent 
had dined of a leg of Adam, our first parent, who was not born 
of flesh, surely we should not consider him innocent of having 
eaten what is flesh. 


Then follows more to the same effect, which we 
may safely leave out. What is important is this, 
that in the twelfth century the belief in the mira- 
culous transformation of the Barnacle shell into the 
Barnacle goose was as firmly established as in the 
seventeenth century ; and that, on that belief, another 


Non ex harum coitu (ut in avibus assolet) ova gignuntur, non avis in 
earum procreatione unquam ovis incubat: in nullis terrarum angulis 
vel libidini vacare vel nidificare videntur. Unde et in quibusdam Hi- 
bernie partibus, avibus istis tamquam non carneis quia de carne non 
natis, episcopi et viri religiosi jejuniorum tempore sine delictu vesci 
solent. Sed hi quidem scrupulose moventur ad delictum. Si quis enim 
eX primi parentis carnei quidem, licet de carne non nati, femore come- 
disset, eum a carnium esu non immunem arbitrarer,’ 


X X 2 


676 CHAPTER XIII. 


belief had grown up, namely, that Barnacle geese 
might safely be eaten during Lent. I am informed 
that in Brittany Barnacles are still allowed to be 
eaten on Fridays, and that the Roman Catholic Bishop 
of Ferns may give permission to people out of his 
diocese to eat these birds at his table. 

How long before Giraldus the fable existed it is 
difficult to tell. I find, however, that a cardinal of the 
eleventh century, Petrus Damianus, refers to a similar 
story in one of his letters. Speaking, as it would seem 
of India, or of an island near India, he says: 


Unde et terra illa occiduis partibus hance consecuta est digni- 
tatem ut ex arborum ramis volucres prodeant, et ad pomorum 
similitudinem animati atque pennati fructus erumpant? Sicut 
enim referunt, qui se vidisse testantur, paulatim incidit pen- 
dulum quid ex ramo suspendi, deinde in imaginem volucris, 
speciemque formari: postremo quantulumcumque plumescens, 
hiatu rostri sese ab arbore dividit, sicque novus aéris habitator 
ante peene discit volare quam vivere. Hnimvero quis tot virtutis 
divine magnalia que contra communem naturam ordinem fiunt, 
enumerare sufficiat.’ 


This passage is supposed to rest on the authority 
of Eustathius, in his Commentary on the Hex- 
ameron, published by Leo Alsatius in 1629. But 
that Commentary is now admitted not to be the work 
of Eustathius, nor does it seem to contain the passage 
quoted by Petrus Damianus. 

It must not be supposed that, during the five 
centuries through which we have traced this legend, 
it was never contradicted. It was contradicted by 
Albertus Magnus (died 1280), who declares that he 


1 Epist. lib. ii. ep. xvii. p. 238. Paris, 1610, 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 677 


saw these birds lay eggs and hatch them.) It was 
contradicted by Roger Bacon (died 1294). Aineas 
Sylvius* (afterwards Pope Pius II., 1458-64), when 
on a visit to King James (13893-1487; reigned 1424— 
37), inquired after the tree, and he complains that 
miracles will always fiee farther and farther; for 
when he came to Scotland to see the tree, he was 
told that it grew farther north in the Orchades. 

In 1599, Dutch sailors, who had visited Greenland, 
gave a full description of how they found there the 
egos of the real Barnacle geese (which they in Dutch 
called rotgansen) ; how they saw them hatching, and 
heard them cry rot, rot, vot; how they killed one of 
them with a stone, and ate it, together with sixty eggs.’ 


‘ <Barbates mentiendo quidam dicunt aves: quas vulgus bonngas 
(baumgans?) vocat: eo quod ex arboribus nasci dicuntur a quibus 
stipite et ramis dependent: et succo qui inter corticem est nutrite : 
dicunt etiam aliquando ex putridis lignis hec animalia in mari generari : 
et preecipue ex abietum putredine, asserentes quod nemo unquam vidit 
has aves coire vel ovare: et hoc omnino absurdum est: quia ego et multi 
mecum de sociis vidimus eas et coire et ovare et pullos nutrire sicut in 
antehabitis diximus : hec avis caput habet quasi pavonis. Pedes autem 
nigros ut cygnus: et sunt membrana conjuncti digiti ad natandum : et 
sunt in dorso cineree nigredinis: et in ventre subalbide, aliquantum 
minores anseribus. —De Animalibus, lib. xxiii. p. 186. 

* *Seribit tamen Eneas Sylvius de hac arbore in hune modum: 
‘‘ Audiveramus nos olim arborem esse in Scotia, que supra ripam flu- 
minis enata fructus produceret, anetarum formam habentes, et eos qui- 
dem cum maturitati proximi essent sponte sua decidere, alios in terram, 
alios in aquam, et in terram dejectos putrescere, in aquam vero demersosg, 
mox animatos enatare sub aquis et in aerem plumis pennisque evolare. 
De qua re cum avidius investigaremus dum essemus in Scotia apud 
Jacobum regem, hominem quadratum et multa pinguedine gravem, 
didicimus miracula semper remotius fugere, famosamque arborem non 
in Scotia sed apud Orchades insulas inveniri.” ’"—Seb. Munster, Cosmo- 
graphia, p. 49. 

* Trois Navigations faites par les Hollandais au Septentrion, par 
Gerard de Vora, Paris, 1599, p. 112. 


678 CHAPTER XIII. 


Nevertheless, the old legend appeared again and 
again, and the birds continued to be eaten by the 
priests during Lent, without any qualms of con- 
science. Aldrovandus, in his Ornithologia, 1603 
(lib. xix.), tells us of an Irish priest, of the name of 
Octavianus, who assured him with an oath on the 
Gospel that he had seen the birds in their rude state 
and handled them. And Aldrovandus himself, after 
weighing all the evidence for and against the mira- 
culous origin of the Barnacle goose, arrived at the 
conclusion that it is better to err with the majority 
than to argue against so many eminent writers.! In 
1629 a Count Maier published at Frankfort a book, 
De Volucri Arborea (On the Tree-bird), in which he 
explains the whole process of its birth, and indulges 
in some most absurd, not to say blasphemous specu- 
lations.” 

But how did this extraordinary story arise? Why 
should anybody ever have conceived the idea that a 
bird was produced from a shell; and this particular 
bird, the Barnacle goose, from this particular shell, 
the Barnacle shell? If the story was once started, 
there are many things that would keep it alive; and 
its vitality has certainly been extraordinary. There 
are certain features about this Barnacle shell which 


* *Malim tamen cum pluribus errare quam tot scriptoribus claris- 
simis oblatrare quibus preter id quod de ephemero dictum est, favet 
etiam quod est ab Aristotele proditum, genus scilicet testatum quoddam 
navigiis putrescente feece spumosa adnasci.’ (P. 178, line 47.) 

* The fourth chapter has the following heading: ‘ Quod finis proprius 
hujus volucris generationis sit ut referat duplici sua natura, vegetabili 
et animali, Christum Deum et hominem, qui quoque sine patre et matre, 
ut ille, existit,’ 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 679 


to a careless observer might look like the first 
rudiments of a bird. The feet in particular, with 
which these animals catch their food and convey it 
into the shell, are decidedly like very delicate feathers. 
The fact, again, that this fable of the shell-geese 
offered an excuse for eating these birds during Lent 
would, no doubt, form a strong support of the common 
belief, and invest it, to a certain extent, with a sacred 
character. In Bombay, where, with some classes of 
people, fish is considered a prohibited article of food, 


the priests call it sea-vegetable, under which name 
it is allowed to be eaten. No one would suspect 
Linneeus of having shared the vulgar error; never- 
theless, he retained the name of anatifera, or duck- 
bearing, as given to the shell, and that of Bernicla, as 
given. to the goose. 

I believe it was language which first suggested, or 
at all events strongly supported, this myth after it 
had once been started. We saw that the shells were 
regularly and properly called bernacule. We also 


680 CHAPTER XIII. 


saw that the Barnacle geese were caught in Ireland. 
It was against the Irish bishops that Giraldus Cam- 
brensis wrote, blaming them for their presumption 
in eating these birds during Lent; and we learn 
from later sources that the discovery made by the 
Irish priests was readily adopted in France. Now 
Ireland is called Hibernia; and I believe these birds 
were originally called Hibernice, or Hiternicule. The 
first syllable was* dropt, as not having the accent, 
just as it was dropt in the Italian verno, winter, 
instead of werno. This dropping of the first syllable 
is by no means unusual in Latin words which, through 
the vulgar Latin of the monks, found their way into 
the modern Romance dialects;! and we actually find 
in the medieval Latin dictionaries the word hyberna- 
gum in the truncated form of bernagiun.? The birds, 
therefore, being called Hibernicule, then Bernicule, 
were synonymous with the shells, equally called 
Bernacule; and as their names seemed one, so the 
creatures were supposed to be one. Everything after- 
wards seemed to conspire to confirm the first mistake, 
and to invest what was originally a good Irish canard 
with all the dignity of scientific, and the solemnity of 
theological truth. 

It should be mentioned, however, that there is 


* Cf. Diez, Rom. Gr. p. 162: rondine=hirundo. 

vescovo = episcopus, 
chiesa = ecclesia. 

* Cf. Du Cange : ‘ Bernagium, pro Hybernagium, ni fallor, miscellum 
frumentum.’ See also dernagium, and panis iernagii. It. bernia, Fr. 
bernie, a coarse stuff for cloaks; also a cloak made of it, a rug ; 
from Hibernia, where it was manufactured ; Donkin, Romance Dice- 
tionary, 8. Vv. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY, 681 


another derivation of the name Bernacula, which 
was suggested to Gesner by one of his correspondents. 


Joannes Caius (he says) writes to me in a letter: ‘I believe 
that the bird which we call Anser brendinus, others Bernaclus, 
ought to be called Bernclacus; for the old Britons and the 
modern Scots called, and call, the wild goose Clake. Hence 
they still retain the name which is corrupted with us, Lake or 
Fenlake, i.e. lake-goose, instead of Fencklake ; for our people 
frequently change letters, and say bern for bren.’ (Historia 
Animatium, lib. iii. p. 110.) 


His idea, therefore, was, that the name was derived 
from Scotch ; that in Scotch the bird was called Bren- 
clake ; that this was pronounced Bernclake, and then — 
Latinised into bernclacus. There is, however, this one 
fatal objection to this etymology, that among the very 
humerous varieties of the name Bernicula,’ not one 


' The name even in Latin varies. In ornithological works the fol- 
lowing names occur, all intended for the same bird, though I do not wish 
to vouch for their correctness or authenticity : 

English : Bernacle, Scotch goose, ‘Tree Geese, Brant Geese. Scotch: 
Clakis or claiks, clak-guse, claik-gees, Barnacle. Orcades: Rodgans. 
Dutch: Ratgans. German; Baumgans. Danish : Ray-gaas, Rad- 
gaas. Norwegian: Raatne-gans, goul, gagi. Icelandic: Helsingen. 
French: Bernache, Cane 3 collier. Nonnette, Religieuse ; Macque- 
rolle, (?) Macreuse. (?) Latin: Bernicula, Bernacula, Bernacla, Ber- 
nicla, Bernecla, Bernecela (Fred. II. Imp., de Arte Vena ndi), Bernaca, 
Bernicha, Bernecha, Berneca, Bernichia, Branta (ab atro colore anger 
scoticus), Bernesta, Barneta (Gervasius Tilb.), Barnaces (Brompton, 
p. 1072), Barliata (Isidorus), Barbata (Albertus Magnus). Barbata 
(or Barbates) may be misread for Barliata or Bachade. 

Cf. Du Cange, s. v. Menage, s. v. Bernache. Diefenbach, Glossarium 
Latino-Germanicum : ‘ Galli has aves Macquerolles et Macreuses appel- 
lant, et tempore Quadragesimali ex Normannia Parisios deferunt. Sed 
revera deprehensuin est a Batavis, anseres hosce ova parere,’ &c, 
(Willoughby). 

Another name is given by Scaliger. Julius Cesar Sealiger, ad Arist. 
de Plantis, lib. i. :—‘ Anates (inquit, melius dixigset Anseres) Oceani, 
quas Armorici partim Crabrans, partim Bernachias vocant. Ex creantur 


682 CHAPTER XIII. 


comes at all near to Bernclacus. Otherwise clake or 
claik certainly means goose; and the Barnacle goose, 
in particular, is so called! As to bran, it means in 
compounds dark, such as the A.S. branwyrt, black- 
berry, different from brunewyrt, brownwort, water 
betony; and Jamieson gives us as Scotch branded, 
brannit, adj., having a reddish-brown colour, as if 
singed by fire; a branded cow being one almost 
entirely brown. A brant-fox is a fox with black feet. 
Branta, we saw, was a name given to the Barnacle 
goose; and it was said to be given to it on account of 
- its dark colour. 


St. Christopher. 


How easily in cases like this a legend grows up to 
remove any difficulty that might be felt at names no 
longer understood, can be proved by many a medieval 
legend, both sacred and profane. 

You know the story of St. Christopher. The Le- 
genda Aurea? says of him that he was a Canaanite, 
very tall and fearful to look at. 


He would not serve anybody who had himself a master; and 
when he heard that his lord was afraid of the devil, he left him 
and became himself the servant of the devil. One day, however, 
when passing a Cross, he observed that his new master was 
afraid of the Cross, and learning that there was one more 
powerful than the devil, he left him to enter the service of 
Christ. He was instructed by an old hermit, but being unable 
to fast or to pray, he was told to serve Christ by carrying 


ex putredine naufragiorum, pendentque rostro a matrice, quoad absolutee 
decidant in subjectas aquas, unde sibi statim victum querunt: visendo 
interea spectaculo pensiles, motitantesque tum pedes, tum alas.’ 

! Brompton, Chronicle of Ireland, col. 1072, ap. Jun. 

* Legenda Aurea, cap. 100. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 683 


travellers across a deep river. This he did, until one day he 

was called three times, and the third time he saw a child that 

wished to be carried across the river. He took him on his 

shoulders, but his weight was such that he could hardly reach 

the opposite shore. When he had reached it, the Child said to 

him he had carried Christ Himself on his shoulders, in proof. 
whereof the stick which he had used for many years, when 

planted in the earth, grew into a tree. 


Many more miracles are said to have happened to 
him afterwards, till at last he suffered the death of a 
martyr. 

Tt is clear, and it is not denied even by Roman 
Catholic writers, that the whole legend of St. Chris- 
topher sprang from his name, which means ‘he who 
bears Christ. That name was intended in a spiritual 
sense, just as St. Ignatius took the name of Theo- 
phorus,” ‘he who bears God,’ namely, in his heart. 
But, as in the case of St. Ignatius, the people who 
martyred him, when tearing out his heart, are said to 
have found it miraculously inscribed with the name 
of God, so the name of Christophorus led to the legend 
Just quoted. Whether there was a real Christophorus 
who suffered martyrdom under Decius, in Lycia, 


* According to a late Latin hymn, it was the Red Sea through which 
Christopher carried the travellers. 

‘O sancte Christophore, 
Qui portasti Jesum Christum, 

Per mare rubrum, 

Nec franxisti crurum, 

Et hoc est non mirum, 
Quia fuisti magnum virum.’ 

* «The accent placed on the penultima of Oeopdpos, as the word is 
written in the saint's acts, denotes it of an active signification, one that 
earrieth God; but of the passive, carried of God, if placed on the ante- 
penultima.’—Alban Butler, Lives of the Saint+, vol. ii. p. 1. 


684. CHAPTER XIII. 


250 A.D., we cannot tell; but even Alban Butler, in 
his Lives of the Saints admits that ‘there seem to 
be no other grounds than his name for the vulgar 
notion of his great stature, the origin of which seems 
to have been merely allegorical, as Baronius observes, 
and as Vida has expressed in an epigram on this 
saint: 

Christophore, infixum quod eum usque it corde gerebas, 

Pictores Christum dant tibi ferri humeris.' 


‘The enormous statues of St. Christopher, still to 
be seen in many Gothic cathedrals, expressed his 
allegorical wading through the sea of tribulations, 
by which the faithful meant to signify the many 
sufferings through which he arrived at eternal life.’ 
Before he was called Christophorus his name was 
Reprobus; so says the Legenda Aurea. Others, im- 
proving on the legend, represent his original name 
to have been Ojfferus,? the second part of Christoferus, 
thus showing a complete misunderstanding of the 
original name. 


St. Ursula. 


Another legend, which is supposed to owe its origin 
to a similar misunderstanding, is that of Ursula and 
the 11,000 Virgins, whose bones are shown to the 
present day in one of the churches of Cologne. This 
extravagant number of martyred virgins, which is not 
specified in the earlier legends, is said to have arisen 
from the name of one of the companions of Ursula 


1 Vida, Hymn. 26, t. ii. p. 150. 
* Maury, Légendes pieuses, p. 58. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 685 


being Undecimellat—an explanation very plausible, 
though I must confess that I have not been able to 
find any authority? for the name Undecimella. 


Bonaventura. 


It would be a great mistake to suppose that these 
and other legends were invented and spread inten- 
tionally. They were the natural productions of the 
intellectual soil of Europe, where the seeds of Chris- 
tianity had been sown before the wild weeds of the 
ancient heathen mythology were rooted up and burnt. 
They are no more artificial, no more the work of in- 
dividuals, than the ancient fables of Greece, Rome, 
or India; nay, we know that the Church, which has 
sometimes been accused of fostering these supersti- 
tions, endeavoured from time to time to check their 
rapid growth, but in vain. What happened at that 
time was what will always happen when the great 
masses are taught to speak the language before they 
have learnt to think the thoughts of their rulers, 
teachers, apostles, or missionaries. What in the mind 
of the teacher is spiritual and true becomes in the 
mouth of the pupil material and frequently false. 
Yet, even in their corrupt form, the words of the 
teachers retain their sacred character; they soon form 
an integral part of that foundation on which the 


' «T’ Histoire de sainte Ursule et des onze mille vierges doit son 
origine & l’expression des vieux calendriers, Ursula et Undecimella, VV. 
MM., c’est--dire sainte Ursule et sainte Undecimelle, vierges et mar- 
tyres. —Maury, p. 214. 

* Jacobus a Voragine, Legenda Aurea, cap.158, Galfredus Monume- 
tensis, lib. v.cap. 9-19. St, Ursula und ihre Gesellschaft. Hine kritisch- 
historische Monographie, von Johann Hubert Kessel. Kéln, 1863. 


686 CHAPTER XIII. 


religious life of a whole nation is built up, and the 
very teachers tremble lest in trying to place each 
stone in its right position, they might shake the struc- 
ture which it took centuries to build up. St. Thomas 
(died 1274) asked Bonaventura (died 1271) whence 
he received the force and unction which he displayed 
in all his works. Bonaventura pointed to a crucifix 
hanging on the wall of his cell. ‘It is that image, he 
said, ‘which dictates all my words to me. What can 
be more simple, more true, more intelligible? But the 
saying of Bonaventura was repeated, the people took 
it literally, and, in spite of all remonstrances, they in- 
sisted that Bonaventura possessed a talking crucifix. 
A profane miracle took the place of a sacred truth ; 
nay, those who could understand the truth, and felt 
bound to protest against the vulgar error, were con- 
demned by the loud-voiced multitude as unbelievers. 

Pictures frequently added a new sanction to these 
popular superstitions. Zurbaran painted a saint (Pierre 
Nolasque) before a speaking crucifix. Whether the 
artist meant it literally or symbolically, we do not 
know. But the crowds took it in the most hteral 
sense, and who was the bold preacher who would tell 
his congregation the plain, though, no doubt, the 
more profound, meaning of the miraculous picture 
which they had once learnt to worship ? 


Symbols misunderstood. 


It was a common practice of early artists to repre- 
sent martyrs that had been executed by the sword, as 
carrying their heads in their hands.!_ The people who 


' Maury, p. 207. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 687 


saw the sculptures could read them in one sense only, 
and they firmly believed that certain martyrs mira- 
culously carried their heads in their hands after they 
had been beheaded.’ Several saints were represented 
with a dove either at their side or near their ear. 
The artist intended no more than to show that these 
men had been blest with the gifts of the Holy Ghost: 
but the people who saw the images firmly believed 
that the Holy Ghost had appeared to their saint in 
the form of a dove.? Again, nothing was more usual 
for an artist than to represent sin and idolatry under 
the form of a serpent or a dragon. A man who 
had fought bravely against the temptations of the 
world, a pagan king who had become a convert 
to Christianity? was naturally represented as a 
St. George fighting with the dragon, and slaying it. 
A missionary who had successfully preached the 
Gospel and driven out the venomous brood of heresy 
or idolatry, became at once a St. Patrick, driving 
away every poisonous creature from the Hibernian 
island.* 

Now it should be observed how in all these cases 
the original conception of the word or the picture is 
far higher, far more reverential, far more truly religious 
than the miraculous petrification which excites the 


* Maury, Légendes pieuses, p. 287: ‘ Cette légende se trouve dans les 
vies de saint Denis, de saint Ovide, de saint Firmin d’Amiens, de saint 
Maurice, de saint Nicaise de Reims, de saint Soulange de Bourges, de 
saint Juste d’Auxerre, de saint Lucain, de sainte Experie, de saint 
Didier de Langres, et d’une foule d’autres.’ 

* Maury, p. 182: ‘ Et primo similis volucri mox vera volucris.’ 

* Maury, p. 135. Eusebius, de Vitd Const., ed. Heinicher, Lipsie, 
1830, p. 150. 

* Maury, p. 141. 


688 CHAPTER XIII. 


superstitious interest of the people at large. If Con- 
stantine or Clovis, at the most critical moments of 
their lives, felt that the victory came from the hands 
of the Only True God, the God revealed by Christ, 
and preached in the cities of the whole Roman Empire 
by the despised disciples of a crucified Lord, surely 
this shows the power of Christianity in a far more 
majestic light than when we are told that these royal 
converts saw, or Imagined they saw, a flag with a 
Cross, or with the inscription, ‘17 hoc signo vinces.’ ! 

If Bonaventura felt the presence of Christ in his 
lonely cell, if the heart of Ignatius was instinct with 
the spirit of God, we can understand what is meant, 
we can sympathise, we can admire, we can love. But 
if we are told that the one merely possessed a talk- 
ing crucifix, and that the heart of the other was 
inscribed with the four Greek letters, OEOS, what is 
that to us ? 

Those old pictures and carved images of saints 
fighting with dragons, of martyrs willing to lay down 
their lives for the truth, of inspired writers listening 
intently to the voice of God, lose all their meaning 
and beauty if we are told that they were only men 
of bodily strength who chanced to kill a gorilla-like 
monster, or beings quite different from ourselves, who 
did not die, even though their heads had been severed 
from their trunks, or old men carrying doves on each 
shoulder. Those doves whispering into the ears of 

' Similar stories are told of Alfonso, the first King of Portugal, who 
is said to have seen a brilliant cross before the battle of Ourique, in 
1139, and of Waldemar II., of Denmark. The red cross of Denmark, 


the Danebrog, dates from Waldemar’s victory over the Estonians in 
1219. See Dahlmann, Greschichte von Ddannemark, vol. i. p. 368. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 689 


the prophets of old were meant for the Spirit of God 
descending like a dove and lighting upon them; and 
the pious sculptors of old would have been horrified 
at the idea that these birds could ever be mistaken 
for real animals in a bodily shape, dictating to the 
prophets the words they should write down. 

Everything is true, natural, significant, if we enter 
with a reverent spirit into the meaning of ancient 
art and ancient language. Everything becomes false, 
miraculous, and unmeaning, if we interpret the deep 
and mighty words of the seers of old in the shallow 
and feeble sense of modern chroniclers. 


Theomenia. 


There is a curious instance of mistaken interpreta- 
tion which happened long before the days of Galileo. 
Karthquakes in later Greek were called Theoméntai, 
which literally means the Anger of God. The ex- 
pression was probably suggested by the language 
of the Bible, where we meet with passages such as 
(Psalm civ. 32), ‘He looketh on the earth, and it 
trembleth; he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.’ 
It was in itself a most appropriate term, but it very 
soon lost its etymological sionificancy, and became 
the conventional and current name for earthquake. 
Nevertheless it kept up in people’s mind the idea 
that earthquakes were more immediately produced 
by the wrath of God, and differed in this way from 
thunderstorms, or famine, or pestilence. Here was 
the source of mischief. The name of Theomeéenta, 
which was quite true in its original conception, 
became falsified by an inadequate interpretation. 

Il. vay, 


690 CHAPTER XIII. 


And what happened? People who, like Photius, 
ventured to assign natural causes that produced 
earthquakes, were cried down by a thoughtless mul- 
titude as unbelievers and heretics.! 

What wild mythology may spring up even in 
modern languages, may be seen from the following 
passages, occurring in a letter in which a well-known 
clergyman protests against the judgment of the 
Privy Council as binding on the Church. 


What right (he says) has the spouse of Christ (the Church) 
to ally herself with the powers of the world? Surely, to do 
so is to commit that terrible spiritual adultery against which 
her Lord has so often warned her. ... A Christian state is 
the child of the Church. It is of the Church, in such a state, 
that each individual is ‘begotten again of God in Christ Jesus ;’ 
it is by her that each is fed; by her prayer and blessing that 
all state acts seek for help from God; by her anointing that 
the sovereign is set apart for the high functions of government. 
Can we, then, defend adultery between a mother and her gon ? 
Such I believe to be, and always to have been, the nature of 
union between church and state. 


By the side of such language the myth of Cidipus 
ceases to be terrible. 


* Gcounvia, ira divina [Kustath. p. 891, 24]: tv Ocopnviay Aids A€yer 
Haorvya (Stephani Thesaurus, Didot). 

Tzetzes, Historiarum variarum Chiliades, ed. Kiesseling, 
1826, v. 727 (cf. Grote, vol. i. p. 589) :— 

av ovppopa KatédaBe médw Ocopnvia, eit’ ody Ards, EiTE AoLpmds, Eire 
kal BAaBos GAAo. 

Theophanes Contin. (p. 673), (Symeon Magister, De Michaele et 
Theodora) :— 

év pug vurtl ovveBn yeveoOat oercpol peyaror Kat airos 6 @wrios dvaBas 
emt Tov auLavos Snunyophoa, eimev b7t of ceropol ove ex mAHOous dpap- 
Tidy GAN éx mAnopovns VSaros yivovrma. Joannes Malalas (Bonne, 
1831), p. 249: 7Hs atTHs méAews ’AvTioxeias AnpPbetaons ind éevartioy, 
woavTws 5€ kal Ocopnvias yevoperns Kal Siapdpav cecpav Kat éunpnopar. 


Lipsie, 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 691 


Abstract Words. 


We have lastly to consider one class of words 
which exercise a most powerful influence on the 
mind, They rule the mind instead of being ruled 
by it, and they give rise to a kind of mythology, the 
effects of which are most widely extended, even at 
the present day. I pointed out before, how, besides 
such abstract names as virtue, fortune, felicity, peace, 
and war, there are others of a slightly different 
character, which equally lend themselves to mytho- 
logical personification. A name like the Latin virtus 
was originally intended to express a quality, man- 
liness, the quality ofa man, or rather every good 
quality peculiar to man. As long as this noun was 
used merely as a noun of quality, as an adjective 
changed into a substantive, no mischief could arise. 

Abstract nouns were originally collective nouns, 
and the transition is very easy from a plural, such as 
‘the cleres’ (clerici), to a collective or abstract noun, 
such as ‘the clergy’ (clericatus). Humanitas meant 
originally ‘all men,’ ‘mankind’; but kind, literally 
genus, came, like genus, to express what constitutes 
kind, the qualities which all members of a kind share 
in common, and by which one particular kind or kin 
is distinguished from all other kinds or kins. 

But when the mind, led away by the outward 
semblance of the word vwirtus, conceived what was 
intended merely as a collective predicate, as a per- 
sonal subjective essence, then the mischief was done. 
An adjective had become a substantive, a predicate 
had been turned into a subject; and as there could 

Yy2 


692 CHAPTER XIII. 


not be any real and natural basis on which this 
spurious being could rest, it was placed, almost in- 
voluntarily, on the same pedestal on which the 
statues of the so-called divine powers had been 
erected ;—it was spoken of as a supernatural or a 
divine being. Vzrtus, manliness, instead of being 
possessed by man, was herself spoken of as possess- 
ing, as ruling, as inciting man. She became a power, 
a divine power, and she soon received temples, altars, 
and sacrifices, like other more ancient gods. Many 
of those more ancient gods owed their origin to exactly 
the same intellectual confusion. We are apt to 
imagine that Day, Night, Dawn, Spring, Heaven, 
Earth, River, are substantial beings, more substantial 
at least than Virtue or Peace. But let us analyse 
these words, let us look for the substantial basis on 
which they rest, and we shall find that they evade 
our touch almost as much as the goddesses of Virtue 
and Peace. 


Erinys. 


We can speak of a pebble, a daisy, a horse, or of a 
stone, a flower, an animal, as individual beings; and 
although their names are derived from some general 
quality peculiar to each, yet that quality is substan- 
tiated in something that exists by itself, and resists 
further analysis. But if we speak of the Dawn, what 
do we mean? Do we mean a substance, an indi- 
vidual, a person? Certainly not. We mean the time 
which precedes the rising of the sun. But then, 
again, what is time? What is there substantial, 
individual, or personal in time, or any portion of 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 693 


time? Yet Language cannot help herself; all the 
nouns which she uses are either masculine or femi- 
nine—for neuters are of later date—and if the name 
of the Dawn has once been formed, that name will 
convey to every one, except to the philosopher, the 
idea of a substantial, if not of an individual and per- 
sonal being. We saw that one name of the Dawn 
in Sanskrit was Saranyt, and that it coincided 
literally with the Greek Hrinys. It was originally 
a perfectly true and natural saying that the rays of 
the Dawn would bring to light the works of dark- 
ness, the sins committed during the night. We have 
a proverb in German: 


Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen, 
Kr kommt doch endlich an der Sonnen. 


No. thread on earth so fine is spun, 
But comes at last before the sun. 


The expression that the Erinys, Saranyt, the 
Dawn, finds out the criminal, was originally quite 
free from mythology; it meant no more than that 
crime would be brought to light some day or other. 
Tt became mythological, however, as soon as the ety- 
mological meaning of Erinys was forgotten, and as 
soon as the Dawn, a portion of time, assumed the 
rank of a personal being. 


Weird Sisters. 


The Weird Sisters sprang from the same source. 
Weird meant originally the Past... It was the name 
given to the first of the three Nornas, the German 


* Grimm, D. M. p. 376; Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, p. 665. 


694: CHAPTER XIII. 


Parew. They were called Urdr, VerSandi, and Skuld, 
Past, Present, and Future,! ‘das Gewordene, ‘das 
Werdende, ‘das (sein) Sollende. They expressed 
exactly the same idea which the Greeks expressed 
by the thread which has been spun, the thread that 
passes through the fingers, and the thread that 1s 
still on the distaff; or by Lachesis, singing what has 
been (a gegondta), Klotho, what is (ta dénta), and 
Atropos, what will be (ta méllonta). 

In Anglo-Saxon, Wyrd occurs frequently in the 
sense of Destiny or Fate. 

Beowulf, v. 915: ‘Ges & wyrd swa& hio sceal,’ 
‘Fate goes ever as it must.’ 

The Weird Sisters were intended either as destiny 
personified, or as fatidice, prophesying what is to 
befal man. Shakespeare retains the Saxon name, 
Chaucer speaks of them as ‘ the fatal sustrin. 


The Earth. 


Again, when the ancient nations spoke of the Earth, 
they no doubt meant originally the soil on which they 
stood; but they soon meant more. That soil was 
naturally spoken of as their mother, that is to say, 
as supplying them with food; and this one name, 
Mother, applied to the Earth, was sufficient to impart 
to it the first elements of personality, if not of hu- 
manity. But this Earth, when once spoken of as an 
individual, was felt to be more than the soil enclosed 
by hurdles, or walls, or mountains. 

To the mind of the early thinkers the Earth became 


1 Ts Elysium another name for future, Zukunft, avenir, and derived 
from Epxopat, 7AvCov ? 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 695 


an infinite being, extending as far as his senses and 
his thoughts could extend, and supported by nothing, 
not even by the Elephant and the Tortoise of later 
Oriental philosophy. Thus the Earth grew naturally 
and irresistibly into a vague being, real, yet not finite ; 
personal, yet not human; and the only name by which 
the ancient nations could call her, the only category 
of thought under which she could be comprehended, 
was that of a goddess, a bright, powerful, immortal 
being, the mother of men, the beloved of the sky, the 
Great Mother. 


Wature. 


Now, it is perfectly true that we in our modern 
languages do not speak any more of gods and god- 
desses; but have we in our scientific and unscientific 
vocabularies none of those nondescript beings, like 
Karth, or Dawn, or Future? Do we never use terms 
which, if rigorously analysed, would turn out to be 
without any substantial basis, resting like the Earth 
on the Elephant, and the Elephant on the Tortoise— 
and the Tortoise swinging in infinite space ? 

Take the word Nature. Natura, etymologically, 
means she who gives birth, who brings forth! But 
who is she, or he, or it? The ancient nations made 
a goddess of her—-and this we consider a childish 
mistake—but what is Nature with us? We use the 
word readily and constantly, but when we try to think 
of Nature as a being, or as an aggregate of beings, 
or as a power, or as an ageregate of powers, our mind 
soon drops: there is nothing to lay hold of, nothing 
that exists or resists. 


696 CHAPTER XIII. 


What is meant by the expression, that fruits are 
produced by Nature? Nature cannot be meant here 
as an independent power, for we believe no longer in 
a Goa or Tellus, a Mother Earth, bringing forth the 
fruits on which we live (ze¢ddros). Goa was one of 
the many names of the Divine ;—is Nature more or 
less to us ? 

Let us see what naturalists and philosophers can 
tell us about Nature. 

Buffon says: 


I have always spoken of the Creator, but you have only to 
drop that word, and put in its place the power of Nature. 

Nature (he says again) is not a thing, for it would be all; 
Nature is not a being, for that being would be God. 

Nature is a living power (he adds) immense, all-embracing, 
all vivifying ; subject to the first Being, it has commenced to 
act at His command alone, and continues to act by His con- 
sent. 


Is this more intelligible, more consistent, than the 
fables of Gea, the mother of Uranos, the wife of 
Uranos? 

Cuvier thus speaks of Nature :1 


By one of those figures of speech to which all languages 
are liable, Nature has been personified; all beings that exist 
have been called ‘the works of Nature’; the general relations 
of these beings among themselves have been called ‘the laws 
of Nature.’ By thus considering Nature as a being endowed 
with intelligence and will, though secondary and limited in its 
powers, people have brought themselves to say that she watches 
constantly over the support of her works, that she does nothing 
in vain, that she always acts by the simplest means. It is easy 
to see the puerility of those philosophers who have conferred 


' See some excellent articles by M. Flourens, in the Journal des 
Savants, October 1863, p. 623. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 697 


on Nature a kind of individual existence, distinct from the 
Creator, from the laws which He has imposed on the move- 
ment, and from the properties and forms which He has given 
to His creatures; and who represent Nature as acting on matter 
by means of her own power and reason. As our knowledge 
has advanced in astronomy, physics, and chemistry, those 
sciences have renounced the paralogisms which resulted from 
the appheation of figurative language to real phenomena. 
Physiologists only have still retained this habit, because, with 
the obscurity in which physiology is still enveloped, it was 
not possible for them to deceive themselves or others ag to 
their profound ignorance of vital movements, except by at- 
tributing some kind of reality to the phantoms of their 
unagination. 


Nature, if we believed all that is said of her, would 
be the most extraordinary being. She has horrors 
(horror vacut), she indulges in freaks (dusus nature), 
she commits blunders (errores nature, monstra). She 
is sometimes at war with herself, for, as Giraldus told 
us, ‘Nature produced barnacles against Nature’; and 
of late years we have heard much of her power of 
selection. 

Nature is sometimes used as meaning simply matter, 
or everything that exists apart from spirit. Yet more 
frequently Nature is supposed to be itself endowed 
with independent life, to be working after eternal 
and invariable laws. Again, we sometimes hear 
Nature used so as to include the spiritual life and 
the intellectual activity of man. We speak of the 
spiritual nature of man, of the natural laws of 
thought, of natural religion. Even the Divine Es- 
sence is not necessarily excluded, for the word nature 
is sometimes used so as to include that First Cause 
of which everything else is considered as an emana- 


698 CHAPTER XIII. 


tion, reflection, or creation. Thus Dugald Stewart 
(vol. iil. p. 246) says: 


I need scarcely add that when I speak of the wisdom of 
Nature, I mean always the wisdom of the Author of Nature. 
The expression has the sanction of immemorial use. It is 
concise and sufficiently intelligible to candid inquirers; and it 
enables us to avoid, in our philosophical arguments, the fre- 
quent recurrence of a name which ought never to be mentioned 
but with sentiments of reverence. 


The Supernatural. 


But while nature seems thus applicable promis- 
cuously to things material and spiritual, human and 
divine, language certainly, on the other hand, helps 
us to distinguish between the works of nature and 
the works of man, the former supplying materials for 
the physical, the latter for the historical sciences ; 
and it likewise countenances the distinction between 
the works both of nature and of man on one side, and 
the Divine agencies on the other: the former being 
called natural and human, the latter supernatural and 
superhuman. 

But now consider the havoe which must needs 
follow if people, without having clearly perceived the 
meaning of Nature, without having agreed among 
themselves as to the strict limits of the word, enter 
on a discussion upon the Supernatural. People will 
fight and call each other very hard names for denying 
or asserting certain opinions about the Supernatural, 
They would consider it impertinent if they were 
asked to define what they mean by the Supernatural ; 
and yet it is as clear as anything can be that these 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 699 


antagonists connect totally different ideas, and ideas 
of the vaguest character, with this term. 

Many attempts have been made to define the super- 
natural or the miraculous, but in every one of these 
definitions the meaning of nature or the natural is 
left undefined. 

Thus Thomas Aquinas explained a miracle as that 
which happens out of the order of nature (preeter 
ordinem nature), while St. Augustine had worded 
his definition far more carefully in saying that we 
call miracles what God performs out of the usual 
course of nature, as known to us (contra cognitum 
nobis cursum solitumque nature). Others defined 
miracles as events exceeding the powers of nature 
(opus excedens nature vires); but this was not con- 
sidered enough, because miracles should not only ex- 
ceed the powers of nature, but should violate the order 
of nature (cum ad miraculum requiratur, nedum ut ex- 
cedat vires naturze, sed preeterea ut sit preter ordinem 
nature). Miracles were actually divided into three 
classes — 1. Those above nature (supra naturam) ; 
2. Those against nature (contra naturam); 8. Those 
beyond nature (preeter naturam). But where nature 
ended and where the supernatural began was never 
explained. Thomas Aquinas went so far as to admit 
miracles quoad nos, and St. Augustine maintained 
that, according to human usage, things were said to 
be against nature which are only against the course 
of nature, as known to mortals (Dici autem humano 
more contra naturam esse quod est contra nature usum 
~mortalibus notum). All these fanciful definitions . 
may be seen carefully examined by Benedict XIV. 


700 CHAPTER XIII. 


in the first part of the fourth book of his work 
De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum Cano- 
nizatione: yet should we look in vain either there or 
anywhere else for a definition of what is natural. 

Here a large field is open to the student of language. 
Tt is his office to trace the original meaning of each 
word, to follow up its history, its changes of form and 
meaning in the schools of philosophy, in the market- 
place, and in the senate. He ought to show how fre- 
quently different ideas are comprehended under one 
and the same term, and how frequently the same idea 
is expressed by different terms. 

These two tendencies in language, Homonymy and 
Polyonymy, which favoured, as we saw, the abundant 
growth of early mythology, are still asserting their 
power in fostering the growth of philosophical systems. 
A history of such terms as to know and to believe, 
Finite and Infinite, Real and Necessary, would do 
more than anything else to clear the philosophical 
atmosphere of our days. 


Infiuence of Language on Thought. 


The influence which language exercises over our 
thoughts has been felt by many philosophers, most of 
all by Locke. Some thought that influence inevitable, 
whether for good or evil; others supposed that it 
could be checked by a proper definition of words, or 
by the introduction of a new technical language. 
A few quotations may be useful to show how inde- 
pendent thinkers have always rebelled against the 


* See an excellent article lately published in the Edinburgh Review, 
‘ On the Supernatural,’ ascribed to one of our most eminent statesmen. 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 701 


galling despotism of language, and yet how little it 
has been shaken. Thus Bacon says: 


Bacon. 


And lastly let us consider the false appearances that are im- 
posed upon us by words, which are framed and applied according 
to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort; and although 
we think we govern our words, and prescribe it well,—loquen- 
dum ut vulgus, sentiendum ut sapientes,—yet certain it is, that 
words, as a Tartar’s bow, do shoot back upon the understanding 
of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment. 
So as it is almost necessary in all controversies and disputations 
to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting down 
in the very beginning the definitions of our words and terms, 
that others may know how we accept and understand them, 
and whether they concur with us or no. For it cometh to pass, 
for want of this, that we are sure to end there where we ought 
to have begun, which is in questions and differences about 
words. 


Locke. 
Locke says : 


I am apt to imagine that, were the imperfections of language, 
as the instruments of knowledge, more thoroughly weighed, a 
great many of the controversies that make such a noise in the 
world would of themselves cease ; and the way to knowledge, 
and perhaps peace too, lie a great deal opener than it does. 


Wilkins. 


Wilkins, when explaining the advantages of his 
philosophical language, remarks: 


This design will likewise contribute much to the clearing of 
some of our modern differences in religion; by unmasking 
many wild errors, that shelter themselves under the disguise 
of affected phrases; which, being philosophically unfolded, 
and rendered according to the genuine and natural importance 
of words, will appear to be inconsistencies and contradictions. 


702 CHAPTER XIII. 


And several of those pretended mysterious profound notions, 
expressed in great swelling words, whereby some men set up 
for reputation, being this way examined, will appear to be 
either nonsense, or very flat and jejune. And though it should 
be of no other use but this, yet were it in these days well 
worth a man’s pains and study; considering the common mis- 
chief that is done, and the many impostures and cheats that 
are put upon men, under the disguise of affected insignificant 
phrases. 


Brown. 


Among modern philosophers, Brown dwells most 
strongly on the same subject: 


How much the mere materialism of our language has itself 
operated in darkening our conceptions of the nature of the 
mind, and of its various phenomena, is a question which is 
obviously beyond our power to solve, since the solution of it 
would imply that the mind of the solver was itself free from 
the influence which he traced and described. But of this, at 
least, we may be sure, that it is almost impossible for us to 
estimate the influence too highly, for we must not think that 
its effect has been confined to the works of philosophers. It 
has acted much more powerfully, in the familiar discourse and 
silent reflections of multitudes, that have never had the vanity 
to rank themselves as philosophers,—thus incorporating itself, 
as it were, with the very essence of human thought. 

In that state of social life, in which languages had their 
origin, the inventor of a word probably thought of little more 
than the temporary facility which it might give to himself and 
his companions in communicating their mutual wants and con- 
certing their mutual schemes of co-operation. He was not 
aware that with this faint and perishing sound, which a slight 
difference of breathing produced, he was creating that which 
was afterwards to constitute one of the most imperishable of 
things, and to form, in the minds of millions, during every 
future age, a part of the complex lesson of their intellectual 
existence,— giving rise to lasting systems of opinions, which, 
perhaps, but for the invention of this single word, never could 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 703 


have prevailed for a moment, and modifying sciences, the very 
elements of which had not then begun to exist. The inventor 
of the most barbarous term may thus have had an influence on 
mankind, more important than all which the most illustrious 
conqueror could effect by a long life of fatigue, and anxiety, 
and peril, and guilt. 

A few phrases of Aristotle achieved a much more extensive 
and lasting conquest; and are perhaps even at this moment 
exercising no small sway on the very minds which smile at 
them with scorn.! 


Hamilton, 


Sir W. Hamilton, in his Lectures on Metaphysics 
(il. p. 812), remarks :— 


To objects so different as the images of sense and the un- 
picturable notions of intelligence, different names ought to be 
given; and, accordingly, this has been done wherever a philo- 
sophical nomenclature of the slightest pretensions to perfection 
has been formed. In the German language, which is now the 
richest in metaphysical expressions of any living tongues, the 
two kinds of objects are carefully distinguished. In our lan- 
guage, on the contrary, the terms idea, conception, notion, are 
used almost as convertible for either; and the vagueness and 
confusion which is thus produced, even within the narrow 
sphere of speculation to which the want of the distinction also 
confines us, can be best appreciated by those who are conver- 
sant with the philosophy of the different countries.2 


I shall, in conelusion, give two or three instances 
to indicate the manner in which I think the Science 
of Language might be of advantage to the philoso- 
pher. 


’ Brown, Works, i. p. 341. 
* See also Stanley in his Ordination Sermon; and Niebuhr, Life 
and Letters, v.i. p. 57. 


704 CHAPTER XIII. 


To Know. 


Knowledge, or to know, is used in modern lan- 
guages in at least three different senses. 

First, we may say, a child knows his mother, or a 
dog knows his master. This means no more than 
that they recognise one present sensuous impression 
as identical with a past sensuous impression. This 
kind of knowledge arises simply from the testimony 
of the senses, or sensuous memory, and it is shared 
in common by man and animal, for a dog scents his 
master even better than a man recognises afriend. The 
absence of this knowledge we call forgetteng—a pro- 
cess more difficult to explain than that of remembering. 
Locke has treated of it in one of the few eloquent 
passages of his Lssay concerning Human Under- 
standing (i. 10, 5): 


The memory of some men, lt is true, is very tenacious, even 
to a miracle; but yet there seems to be a constant decay of 
all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in 
minds the most retentive; so that if they be not sometimes 
renewed by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on 
those kinds of objects which, at first, occasioned them, the 
print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen. 
Thus the ideas, as well as children of our youth, often die 
before us ; and our minds represent to us those tombs to which 
we are approaching; where though the brass and marble 
remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the 
imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds 
are laid in fading colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, 
vanish and disappear. How much the constitution of our 
bodies, and the make of our animal spirits, are concerned in 
this, and whether the temper of the brain make this difference, 
that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like marble, 
in others like freestone, and in others little better than sand, 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 705 


I shall not here inquire: though it may seem probable that 
the constitution of the body does sometimes influence the 
memory; since we oftentimes find a disease quite strip the 
mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever, in a few days, 
caleine all those images to dust and confusion, which seemed 
to be as lasting as if graved in marble. 


Secondly, we may say, I know this to be a triangle. 
Here we have a general conception, that of triangle, 
which is not supplied by the senses alone, but elabo- 
rated by reason, and we predicate this of something 
which we perceive at the time by our senses. We 
recognise a particular sensuous impression as falling 
under the general category of triangle. Here the 
difference is very clear. We not only recognise what 
we see, as the same thing we had seen before, but we 
must previously have gathered certain impressions 
into one cluster, and have given a name to this 
cluster; before we can apply that name whenever the 
same cluster presents itself again. This is knowledge 
denied to the animal, and peculiar to man as a rea- 
soning being. All syllogistic knowledge falls under 
this head. The absence of this kind of knowledge is 
called ignorance. 

Thirdly, we say that man knows there is a God. 
This knowledge is based neither on the evidence of 
the senses, nor on the evidence of argumentative 
reason. No man has ever seen God, no man has ever 
formed a general conception of God. Neither sense 
nor reason can supply a knowledge of God. What 
are called the proofs of the existence of God, whether 
ontological, teleological, or kosmological, are possible 
only after the idea of God has been realised within 

ine ZZ 


706 CHAPTER XIII. 


us. Here, then, we have a third kind of knowledge, 
which imparts to us what is neither furnished by the 
organs of sense, nor elaborated by our reason, and 
which nevertheless possesses evidence equal, nay, 
superior, to the evidence of sense and reason. 

Unless these three kinds of knowledge are carefully 
distinguished, the general question, How we know? 
must receive the most contradictory answers. 


To Believe. 


‘To believe’ likewise expresses in modern English 
several very different kinds of assent. When we 
speak of our belief in God, or in the immortality of 
the soul, or in the divine government of the world, 
we want to express a certainty independent of sense- 
evidence and reason, yet to those who possess it more 
convincing than either, evidence not to be shaken either 
by the report of the senses or by the weight of logical 
arguments. To believe, in this sense, 1s the strongest 
assent which creatures, made as we are, can give. 

But when we say that we believe that Christ 
suffered under Pontius Pilate, or lived during the 
reign of Augustus, we do not intend to say that 
we believe this with the same belief as the existence 
of God, or the immortality of the soul. The assent we 
give to these events is totally different, and based on 
historical evidence, which is only a subdivision of sense- 
evidence, supplemented by the evidence of reason. If 
facts could be brought forward to show that our chro- 
nology was wrong, and that Augustus was emperor 
fifty years sooner or later, we should willingly give 
up our belief that Christ and Augustus were contem- 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 707 


poraries. Pelief in these cases means no more than 
that we have grounds, sensuous or argumentative, 
for admitting certain facts. I saw the revolution at 
Paris in February 1848: this is sense-evidence. I 
saw men who had seen the revolution at Paris in 
July 1830: this is sense-evidence, supplemented by 
argumentative evidence. I saw men who had seen 
men that had seen the revolution at Paris in July 
1789: this is again sense-evidence, supplemented by 
argument. The same chain carries us back to the 
remotest times, but, where its links are weak or 
broken, no power of belief can restore them. It is 
impossible to assent to any historical facts, as such, 
without the evidence of sense or reason. We may 
be as certain of historical facts as of our own exist- 
ence, or we may be uncertain. We may either give 
or deny our assent, or we may give our assent pro- 
visionally, conditionally, doubtfully, carelessly. But 
we can as little believe a fact, using to believe in its 
first sense, as we can reason with our senses, or see 
with our reason. If, nevertheless, to believe is used 
to express various degrees of assent to historical facts, 
it 1s of great importance to bear in mind that the 
word thus used does not express that supreme cer- 
tainty which is conveyed in our belief in God and 
Immortality (credo in), a certainty never attainable 
by ‘cumulative probabilities.’! 

To believe is used in a third sense when we say, 
‘I believe it is going to rain.’ ‘I believe’ here 
means no more than ‘I guess. The same word,- 
therefore, conveys the highest as well as the lowest 

' Dr. Newman, Apologia pro Vitd sud, p. 324, 
ZZ 


708 CHAPTER XIII. 


degree of certainty that can be predicated of the 
various experiences of the human mind, and the con- 
fusion produced by its promiscuous employment has 
caused some of the most violent controversies in 
matters of religion and philosophy. 


The Infinite. 


The Infinite, we have been told over and over 
again, 18 a purely’negative idea; it excludes only, it 
does not include anything; nay, we are assured, in 
the most dogmatic tone, that a finite mind cannot 
conceive the Infinite. A step farther carries us into 
the very abyss of Metaphysics. There is no Infinite, 
we are told, for as there is a Finite, the Infinite has 
its limit in the Finite, and cannot therefore be In- 
finite. Now all this is mere playing with words 
without thoughts. Why is infinite a negative idea? 
Because infinite is derived from finite by means of 
the negative particle 2n! But this is a mere acci- 
dent; it is a fact in the history of language, and no 
more. The same idea may be expressed by the Per- 
fect, the Eternal, the Self-existing, which are positive 
terms, or contain at least no negative element. That 
negative words may express positive ideas was known 
perfectly to Greek philosophers such as Chrysippus, 
and they would as little have thought of calling 
vmmortal a negative idea as they would have con- 
sidered blind positive. The true idea of the Infinite 
is neither a negation nor a modification of any other 
idea." The Finite, on the contrary, is in reality the 


* On the different kinds of infinity, see Roger Bacon, Opus Tertium, 
cap. 51 (ed, Brewer, p. 194). Of the positive infinite he says: ‘et 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 709 


limitation or modification of the Infinite; nor is it 
possible, if we reason in good earnest, to conceive of 
the Finite in any other sense than as the shadow 
of the Infinite. Even language will confess to this, 
if we cross-examine her properly. For whatever the 
etymology of finis may be, whether it be derived 
from jindere or figere, whether it means that which 
cuts or that which is fixed, it is clear that it stands 
for something which by means of the senses is in- 
apprehensible. We admit in mathematical reasoning 
that points, lines, and planes can never be presented 
to the eye. It is the same in the world at large. 
No finger, no razor, has ever touched the end of 
anything: no eye has laid hold of the horizon which 
divides heaven and earth, or of the line which 
separates green from yellow, or unites yellow with 
white. No ear has ever caught the point where one 
note enters into another. Our senses never convey 
to us anything finite or definite, their impressions are 
always relative, measured by degrees, but by degrees 
of an infinite scale. It is maintained by some autho- 
rities* that the ear can take in 38,000 vibrations in 
one second. This is the highest note. The lowest 
number of vibrations producing musical sound jis 
sixteen in one second. Between these two points 
lies the sphere of our musical percéptions, but there is 


dicitur infinitum non per privationem terminorum quantitatis, sed per 
negationem corruptionis et non esse.’ Oxford of the nineteenth century 
need not be ashamed, as far as metaphysics are concerned, of Oxford of 
the thirteenth. 

* Bopp, Vergleichende Grammatik, iii, p.248. Schweizer, in Kuhn’s 
Zeitschrift, iii, p. 857. 

2 See p. 96. 


710 CHAPTER XIII. 


in reality a progressus ad infinitum on either side. 
The same applies to colour. Wherever we look, we 
never find a real end, a seizable finis. Finis, there- 
fore, and the finite express something which the 
senses by themselves do not supply, something that 
in our sensuous experience is purely negative, a name 
of something which, in the language of the senses, has 
no existence at all. But it has existence in the 
language of reason. Reason, which has as much right 
as the senses, postulates the Finite in spite of the 
senses; and when we speak reasonably, the Finite, 
i.e. the measures of space and time, the shades of 
colour, the notes of sound, &c., all these become to us 
the most positive elements of thought. Now it is 
our reason on which we pride ourselves most; we 
like to be called rational beings, and we are apt to 
look down on the other two organs of knowledge as 
of less importance. But there are, besides Reason, 
the two other organs of knowledge, Sense and Faith, 
all three together constituting our being, neither 
subordinate to the other, but all co-equal. Faith, 
for I can find no better name in English, is that 
organ of knowledge by which we apprehend the In- 
finite, 1.e. whatever transcends the ken of our senses 
and the grasp of our reason. The Infinite is hidden 
from the senses, it is denied by Reason, but it is per- 
ceived by Faith ; and it is perceived, if once perceived, 
as underlying both the experience of the senses and 
the combinations of reason. What to our reason is 
merely negative, the In-finite, becomes to our faith 
positive, the Infinite, and if our eyes are once opened, 
we see even with our senses straight into that endless 


MODERN MYTHOLOGY. ra 


All by which we are surrounded on every side, and 
without which the fleeting phenomena of the senses 
and the wonderful cobwebs of our reason would be 
vanity, and nothing but vanity. 


Philosophical Mythology. 


Not even the Natural Sciences, which generally 
pride themselves on the exactness of their language, 
are free from words which, if rigorously analysed, 
would turn out to be as unsubstantial as Nemesis 
and the Erinys. Naturalists used to speak of Atoms, 
things indivisible, which are mere conceptions of the 
mind, as if they were real, in the sensuous sense of 
the word, whereas it is impossible for the senses to 
take cognisance of anything that cannot be divided, 
or is incommensurable. Chemists speak of zmpon- 
derable substances, which is as impossible a concep- 
tion as that of atoms. Imponderable means what 
cannot be weighed. But to weigh is to compare the 
gravity of one body with that of another. Now, it is 
impossible that the weight of any body should be so 
small as to defy comparison with the weight of some 
other body; or, if we suppose a body without weight 
and gravity, we speak of a thing which cannot exist 
in the material world in which we live, a world 
governed without mercy by the law of gravitation. 

Every advance in physical science seems to be - 
marked by the discarding of some of these mytho- 
logical terms, yet new ones spring up as soon as the 
old ones are disposed of. Till very lately, Caloric 
was a term in constant use, and it was supposed to 
express some real matter, something that produced 


“ES CHAPTER XIII. 


heat. That idea is now exploded, and heat is under- 
stood to be the result of molecular and ethereal vibra- 
tions. All matter is supposed to be immersed in a 
highly elastic medium, and that medium has received _ 
the name of Hther. No doubt this is a great advance: 
—yet what is Ether, of which everybody now speaks 
as of a substance—heat, light, electricity, sound, being 
only so many different modes or modifications of it 2 
Ether is a myth—a quality changed into a substance — 
an abstraction, useful, no doubt, for the purposes of 
physical speculation, but intended rather to mark the 
present horizon of our knowledge than to represent 
anything which we can grasp either with our senses 
or with our reason. As long as it is used in that 
sense, aS an algebraic «, as an unknown quantity, it 
can do no harm—as little as to speak of the Dawn as 
Erinys, or of Heaven as Zeus. The mischief begins 
when language forgets itself, and when we mistake 
the Word for the Thing, the Quality for the Sub- 
stance, the Nomen for the Nwmen. 


Ne De tiate 


A and A, how produced, 127. 

A in Sanskrit, 124. 

A-back, 18. 

Abeille, 342. 

Abipones, language of the, 41. 

Academy, French, its decree re- 
specting the participles present, 
22. 

Acadian name of the Great and 
Little Bear, 461 n. 

Accent, in Gothic, not pitch only, 
but stress also, 275. 

Accepter, 341. 

Acer, 73. 

Acheter, 341. 

Achilléa or Leuke, 621 n. 

Achilles, prayer of, 552. 

Achilleus and Aharyu, 621 n. 

Achonensis, J., on the barnacle 
goose, 672. 

Acid, a technical name, 58. 

A-coming, 14. 

Acoustic illusions, Ig1 x. 

Acrimony, 73. 

ACS; 73° 

Adeva, not bright, ungodly, 569. 

Aditi, Dawn, 619. 

— from a and diti, 619 n. 

— mother of all the gods, 620, 637. 

Admiral, amiral, 300 n. 

Ad-olescere, 374. 

Adultus, 374 n. 

AMacus, son of Zeus, 557. 

fides, sing., a sanctuary, 530. 

— plur., a dwelling-house, 530. 

gina, mother of Alacus by Zeus, 
SBYE 


Aineas Sylvius, on miracles, 667, 


bolic dialect, 45. 


AXiolus, of late Greek historians, 
502. 

4s, copper, 291. 

— Cyprium, 292. 

fEschylus on the gods, 493. 

— on Zeus, 554. 

Aistuary, 246. 

Atternus, 76. 

fEpeling, a man of rank, 17. 

Aivum, age, 76. 

African languages divided by Dr. 
Bleek into two families, 10. 

—- vowels and consonants peculiar 
to, 28. 

— clicks, 166 n. 

— simplicity of syllables in, 208. 

Agalmata phénéenta, 395. 

Vows LO: 

Agni, meaning of, 522. 

— associated with Indra, 613. 

Agnis, the two, 613. 

A-going, 14. 

AH root, 621. 

Ahalya, goddess of night, 621 x. 

Aham, Sk., 445. 

Ahana, the bright, 638. 

Ahoratrah, or ahoratram, the time 
of day and night together, 
604 2. 

Ahoratre, day and night, 604. 

Aief, 311. 

Aiguille, 73. 

Ai-mata, queen of Tahiti, 39 

Ainos, Batchelor on the, 190. 

Air, vibrations of, 108. 

AL, to grow, 374 2. 

Ala and O.H.G. ahsala, 348 n. 

— and axilla, 3.49. 

Albern, 310. 

Albings, or sons of Elbe, 15 


714 


Aldrovandus on barnacles, 678. 
Aletis, name for Erigone, 585 n. 
Aleuron, wheat flour, 417. 

Alfonso I, his vision, 688. 

Algonkin dialects, 387. 

— names of animals, 387. 

Algorismus, 339. 

Al-Kharizmy, 339. 

Allegorical interpretation of Mytho- 

_ logy, 497. 

Alliteral or Kafir languages, 11. 

Aloadae, 417. 

Aloé, threshing-floor, 417. 

loga, animals called so by the 
Greeks, 71. 

Alogon, horse, 76. 

Aloha, love, in Hawaian, 404. 

Alphabet, the actual, 123. 

— general, 161. 

— physiological, 164. 

— common, proposed by Lepsius, 
165. 

— of Sir W. Jones, 167. 

— of author, 167. 

— number of words from the, 370. 

— or ABO, 371. 

Alphabetical writing, 80. 

Alphabets, rich, 174. 

— poor, 176. 

Already, as the past tense in Chinese, 
36. 

Alumnus, 3747. 

AM, Sk. root, 385. 

Amare, 385. 

Ambrosfa, immortality, 413. 

Ambrotoi, 413. 

Analogy, limits of, 25. 

Anatifera, duck-bearing, name for 
the barnacle shell, retained by 
Linnzus, 679. 

Anaxagoras, 497. 

— thrown into prison, 491. 

Ancien, 328. 

Ancient Northumbria, dialects of, 


20, 
— religions, hostility of all early 
Christian divines to the, 534. 
Ande and inde, the Anglo-Saxon 
termination, 14. 
Angiras, the, 581. 


INDEX. 


Animals have sensation, perception, 
&c., 71. 

— and infants, difference between, 
oT. 

Animus, 436. 

Annamitic, the, 30. 

— musical accents in, 31. 

Annihilation, 442. 

— Hamilton on, 442 n. 

Ante, 328. 

Anthropology, the crown of all the 
natural sciences, 7. 

Antichrist, changed to Endekrist, 
6 


adpwva, mutes, 88. 

Aphona, 89. 

Aphonia, 112. 

apOoyya, semi-vowels, 88. 

Aphrodite, Charis a name for, 473. 

— Argynnis a name for, 474. 

Apollo, worshipped by the Dorian 
family, 540. 

Appleyard, on the Kafir language, 


43 1. 
Aptya or Trita, 644. 
Apya yosha, the water-wife, 637. 
Aqua, apa in Roumanian, 308. 
Aquinas, Thomas, 73. 
Arabic, guttural sounds in, 147. 
— consonants in, 181. 
*Ardchné and aranea, 348. 
Aratos, view of the universe, 553. 
Arawakes, murder of the, 46. 
Arcadian, or bear race, 478. 
Arcadians, from Arkas, 557. 
— their national deity, Kallisto, 
557- 
Arcturus, 462. 
res, Areéds, 419. 
— Mars and the Maruts, 420. 
Argos the all-seeing, 482. 
Arguni, the brilliant, 638. 
Argynnis, name for Aphrodite, 474. 
Aris and alis, 204. 
Aristotle, on letters, 369. 
— on language, 370. 
— on elements, 370. 
— on words, 391. 
— on the gods, 498. 
— on our sense of the godhead, 550. 


LN DEX: 


Arithmetic, 339. 

ARK, Sk. root, 457. 

Arkah, name for the sun, 458. 
— hymn of praise, 458. 
Arkas, 478, 557. 

Arktos, or Great Bear, 461. 
— and riksha, 459 n. 

— or Kallisto, 557. 

Arminius, songs to, 573. 

— his name, 574. 

Aron and aran, 222. 
Artaxerxes Ochus, inscriptions of, 


4. 

Articulate sounds, the uncertainty 
of rendering inarticulate sounds 
by, 388 n. 

Articulation, mode of, 279. 

— place of, 279. 

Artificial language, an, 52. 

Aruna and arusha, 471. 

Aryan and Polynesian languages, 
relation between, 8, 9. 

— initial double consonants in, 
a 

— treble roots in, 232. 

— initial soft and hard checks in, 
ay 

— words common to various, 240. 

—speech in Europe, age of, 
287. 

AS, Sk. root, 73, 446. 

Ascoli on deva, deus, &., 514 2. 

Ash dahak and Zohak, 644. 

Askr, 573. 

Aspirate, no Aryan root ends in an, 
268. 

Aspirated checks, 158. 

— consonants not known to the 
Romans, 194. 

Aspirates, old Greek, 160. 

— soft Sanskrit, 161. 

— in various languages, 229. 

— Teutons had none, 235. 

Asscingas, 17. 

Agsibilating languages do not la- 
bialise, 280. 

Assibilation and labialisation of k, 
g, gh, 278. 

Asu, breath, 446. 

Asva, the runner, the horse, mt 


715 


Asvattha, 
628 n. 

Asvin, derived by Aurnavabha from 
asva, horse, 607. 

Asvins, always spoken of in the 
dual, 607. 

— hymn to the, 608. 

Athéné, 621-624. 

— worshipped by the Ionian family, 
546. 

— as the Dawn, 622. 

Athenians, prayer of the, 546. 

Athens, St. Paul at, 534. 

Atlas, 503, 509. 

Atoms, 711. 

Atropos, 694. 

Attic dialect, 45. 

Attributive words formed in ing, 17. 

A-two, 309. 

Aube, dawn, 75. 

Auberge, 331. 

Aue, 355. 

Aufreiben, 412. 

Augadaur6, window, 355. 

Augia, aue, 355. 

Augurium, 302. 

Auhn-s, Gothic; dsna, Sk., 277. 

Aurnavabha, derives Asvin from 
asva, horse, 607. 

Aurum and aurora, 480. 

Australian languages, 177 n. 

— — and Polynesian dialects, no s 
inet Oo 

— languages, consonants in, If1. 

— languages and race, 189. 

Avancer, 328. 

Avant, 328. 

Avantage, 328. 

Awgrim, or algrim, 339. 

Axilla, 349. 

yas, Sk., iron, 291. 

Aymonier on Te pi in Cambodja, 
42. 

Azara, on South American lan- 
guages, 30. 


horse-stand, myth of, 


B and p in Dacota language, 189. 

Ba, ba, ba, bé, 33. 

Baba-Kay, the rock, called Papagei, 
652. 


716 


Bachat, the, or barnacle goose, 673. 

Back, 18. 

Bacon, Lord, states that the West 
Indians have no word for God, 
548. 

— on words, 701. 

— Roger, views on language, 36. 

Badder, baddest, 220. 

Bakhshish, 121 2. 

Balanide, 662. 

Ball, balloon, 336. 

BANDH, to bind, 271. 

Banier, the Abbé, on Mythology, 


504. 
Bank and Bench, 336. 
Bantu, simple syllables in, 208. 
— languages, 258. 
Bar, barrier, 336. 
Barditus, shield-song, 572. 
BARH, to make strong, 271. 
Barlow’s experiments, 123. 
Barnacle, the shell, 661. 
Barnacle goose, 662. 
— derivation of name, 679-682. 
Barnacles, 659. 
— for spectacles, 659. 
— Barnacule, 662. 
— Moray on, 663. 
— Walton on, 664. 
— Florio on, 665. 
— Campion on, 665. 
— Gerarde on, 665. 
— Sebastian Munster on, 667. 
— Saxo Grammaticus on, 667. 
— Boece on, 668. 
— Albertus Magnus on, 668 x. 
— Maundeville on, 670. 
— Trevisa on, 670, 
— the Zohar on, 671. 
—- Vincentius Bellovacensis on, 671. 
-— Pope Innocent III on, 671. 
— Jacob de Vitriaco on, 672. 
— Gervasius of Tilbury on, 673. 
— Giraldus Cambrensis on, 674. 
— Petrus Damianus on, 676. 
— still eaten in Roman Catholic 

countries, 676. 
— Roger Bacon on, 677. 
_ — A#nius Sylvius on, 677. 
— Aldrovandus on, 678. 


TENG DIE AX 


Barnacles, Count Maier on, 678. 

Baron, 318. 

Base, basis, 77. 

Bask, the participle present in, 24. 

— Abbé Darrigol’s work on, 24 n. 

Batchelor on t in Aino language, 190. 

Bates, Naturalist on the Amazons, 
48. 

Baum, 326. 

Be, to, 447. 

Beam and baum, 326. 

Bear, Great, origin of name, 459, 460. 

— called Septentriones, 463. 

— boves and temo, 464. 

— never sets, reason why, 557. 

Bee, ridu-pa, 417 n. 

Beech, buckmast, 245 n, 282, 296. 

Believe, to, 439, 706. 

Bell, Mr. Melville, go. 

Bellow’s vocabulary, 171. 

Bellum, 309. 

Bengali, intinitive in, 23. 

Béom, A.S., Iam, 245. 

Béricle, bésicle, 650. 

Bernacule, 662, 679. 

Bernicula, varieties of the name, 
681 n. 

Bernagium, for hybernagium, 680. 

Bernlein, berniques, 660. 

Berry, word for waterberry in 
Finnish gradually meant berry, 
404. 

Bersu, ‘ Die Gutturalen,’ 281. 

Bertrand, M., ‘Sur les Dieux Pro- 
tecteurs,’ 546. 

Bésicle, bis-cyclus, 660. 

Bet, to, 334. 

BHAR, 261. 

BHRAM, 270. 

BHUG wer 

Biblical Interpretations of Mytho- 
logy, 505. 

Billy Ruffian, 653 n. 

Biluchi, dialectic change in, 333 n. 

Bin, German, 245. 

Bircingas, 16. 

Bis, 309. 

Black, blue, and dark green not dis- 
tinguished in Hawaian, 403. 

Blamer, 340. 


INDEX. 


Blépté, I damage, 424. 

Bleek, Dr., and the two families of 
African speech, 10. 

— on Grimm’s Law in South Africa, 


259. 

Bochart on mythology, 505. 

Body of language, 50. 

Boece, Hector, on barnacles, 668. 

Boka, Gothic, fagus, 245. 

— singular, a letter, 288-n. 

Bolza on the meaning of letters in 
ltalian, 385. 

Bonaparte, Louis Lucien, his English 
dialects, 2 7. 

Bonaventura, 685. 

Bonheur, malheur, 301, 

Book, 288. 

Bodtes, 464. 

Bopp on the relation between Aryan 
and Polynesian languages, 8. 

— on Grimm’s Law, 263. 

Boulevard, 331. 

Boves et temo, 464, 465. 


Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh theories, — 


382. 

Bramble, 247, 

Bran, meaning dark, 682. 

Brasenose College, 656. 

Braune on High German, 262. 

Brazilian tribes and their many 
languages, 48. 

Bréal, Michel, note on Hermes, 
5QI n. 

Breath, asu, 446. 

Breathings, 136. 

Brenclake for barnacle goose, 681, 

Bridge, 175. 

Brihaspati, the cows of, 581. 

Brille, spectacles, 659. 

— beryllus, 659. 

Brim, 246. 

Briseis, Brisaya, 586. 

Brisk, 335 n. 

British words beginning with g, 2157. 

Broom, 247. 

Brown, on language and thought, 
VON 702, 

Brown and red not distinguished in 
some dialects, 403. 

Briicke’s ‘Sprachlaute,’ 391. 


Brugmann, 281. 

Buch, buche, 288. 

— book, 288 n. 

Buch-stabe, béc-staef, 288 n. 
Buckingham, 16. 

Buddhist Nirvana, 443. 

BUDH, to bid, 271. 

Budh, Sk., to wake, to know, 623. 
Buidna, bottom, 270. 

Bwer, for butter, 173. 

Bak, Persian, oak, 295 2. 

Bull and gate, 653. 

Bunsen on ethnological philology, 8, 
Burden and burthen, 175. 
Burnouf on Yima, 643. 

Bushman language, Io. 


Caldwell, Rey. R., his Dravidian 
Grammar, 211. 

Caloric, 711. 

Cambrensis, Giraldus, on barnacles 
674. 

Campion on barnacles, 665. 

Can and know, 213. 

Canada, t and k interchanged in, 
198. 

Cantimpratensis, T., on barnacles, 
673. 

Capta, name for Athéné, 623. 

Captif, 341. 

Cara, chére, cheer, 174. 

Caribe women, language of the, 46. 

Castelvetro, 343 n. 

Castrén, on the absence of general 
names in the Northern Tura- 
nian languages, 404. 

Cat knows how many kittens she 
has, 72. 

— and Wheel, 653. 

Catalogue raisonné of Bishop Wil- 
kins, 57. 

Catch of the breath in Hawaian, 


? 


173. 
—-— among the Seneca Indians, 
173. 


— -— and in Renfrewshire, 173. 
Catholic, 356, 

Catus, 73-2. 

Causative verbs in Sk., 274. 
Cause, chose, 341. 


718 


Caylus, le comte de, 4 n. 

Celebes, Malays of, 37. 

— — Wallace on, 37. 

— Io distinct languages spoken in 
one small district, 38. 

Celebro and cerebrum, 205. 

Celtic skull, 296 n. 

Celts, dislike initial s before a con- 
sonant, 215 7. 

Cenobite, 366. 

Cenotaph, 366. 

Centaurs, 503. 

Cedsan, coren, 273. 

Cerberus, 501. 

-— same as Sarvara, 580, 

Cerebral letters, 151 7. 

Ceres standing for bread, 547. 

Ch and j in English, 174. 

Chafrein, to rejoice, 237. : 

Chafré, 475. 

Chalkés, copper, 289. 

Chaloupe =sloop, 331. 

Chamisso on k and t, 185. 

Chamisso’s Travels, 41. 

Champollion, Sir G. C. Lewis’s at- 
tacks on, 37. 

Change of form, 307. 

— of meaning, 309. 

Changeling, 17. 

Character, 84. 

Characteristics of Leibniz, the, 53. 

Charis, 469. 

— Charites, same as Harits, 473. 

— name of Aphrodite, 473. 

— wife of Hephestos, 473. 

— Dr. Sonne on, 484. 

— the Aphrodite, identical with Sk. 
Ushas, the Dawn, 4806. 

Charites, 590. 

Charlemagne, 657. 

Charles V of France, legend of, 
657. 

Charles Quint and Hellequin, 657. 

Charles’s Wain, 461 n. 

Checks or mutes, 150. 

— how formed, 151. 

— hard or tenues, 153. 

— sonant or mediae, 153. 

~— nasal, 156. 

~ + aspirated, 158. 


TN Dae x. 


Checks, sonant and gurd initials in 
Aryan languages, 235. 

Cheer, chére, cara, 174. 

Cherry, cerise, cerasia, 174. 

Chétif, 341. 

Cheveu, 342. 

Child, 175, 247. 

Children, language of, 380. 

Chinese, dialects of, 30. 

— 450 distinct sounds in, 32. 

— number of words in, 32. 

— a few words expressing plurality 
preserved in, 34. 

— how ego is expressed in, 35 n. 

— polite phrases in, 35. 

— past tense in, 36, 

— Tepi in, 42. 

— no d in, 178. 

— nor in, 179. 

— syllables all open or nasal, 208. 

— no outward distinction between 
a root and a word in, 378, 379. 

Choisir, 332. 

Chord vocales, 102. 

— average length of, 107, 

Chose, cause, 341. 

Christ in Chinese, 179. ; 

— how written in different lan- 
guages, 179, 180. 

Chrysippus on the gods, 492. 

Church Missionary Alphabet, 170. 

Church and State, union between, 
690, 

Cicero on our language, 44. 

— on mythology, 496. 

Cielo della bocea, 314. 

Circonstance, 344. 

Clamare, chiamare, llamar, 197. 

Clicks, African, 166 n. 

Clouds, called parvata in the Veda, 
482. 

Clovis’ vision, 688. 

Coat cards, 658. 

Cochin China, modern language of, 
30. 

— — words ending in k, t, p, 31. 

Cochin Chinese, like the twittering 
of birds, 31. 

-— — dai in, 31. 

— — plural in, 33, 34. 


INDEX. 


Cochin Chinese, tenses in, 34. 

Codrington’s ‘Melanesian 
guages,’ 260. 

Coeruleus, from coelum, 205. 

Cogitare, coagitare, 72. 

Cohobation, 400, 401. 

Cohors, or cors, 314. 

Coic, in Welsh pimp, 307. 

Colonel, 205. 

Colour cannot exist by itself, 85. 

Colshire, 400. 

Comparative Mythology, 514. 

Condere, from root dha, 234. 

Consonantal contact, three points 
of, 229. 

— system in High German, 257. 

— — in Gothic, 257. 

Consonant, Mitlauter, 94. 

Consonants, 118-133. 

— the bones of language, 134. 

— are noises, 135. 

— breathings, 136. 

— trills, 148. 

— checks or mutes, 150. 

— in various languages, 180. 

—only three allowed in Greek, 


Lan- 


195. 

— double, 207. 

— nine cases of the dislocation of, 
242. 

Constantine’s vision of the Cross, 
688. 

Contaminare, 348. 

Contrée, 346. 

— for regio, 227. 

Contre-pointe, 658. : 

Contrition, 438. 

Cook, Captain, pronounced Tute, 
177. 

Copedand iron, Mexican words 
for, 289. 

— Hesiod’s mention of, 290. 

— ancients knew how to harden, 
290. 

— names for, 291. 

Coquo and pép-tod, 307. 

Cor, cornu, 249. 

Corn, 247. 

Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, 


44. 


19 


Corpus and Sk. sar-ira, 280, 
Correlative Deities, 604. 
Corvus and crow, 28. 
Count, 318. 


| Counterpane, 658, 


Country, 346. 

Coup de la glotte, 138. 

Court, 314. 

Court cards =coat cards, 6<8. 

Courteous, courtesy, 315. 

Courte-pointe, 658. 

Cousin and Locke, 444, 447. 

Cows of Brihaspati, 581. 

Cox, Mr., on Harits and Charites, 
486 n. 

Crab, 337. 

Craindre for tremere, 198. 

Cran and crane, 238. 

Crane, 449. 

Crawfurd’s Aryan theory, 11 1. 

Crayfish, 337. 

— are fish, 337. 

Credo, 234. 

Creuzer’s ‘ Symbolik,’ 499. 

Croesus, his ‘Homerus Ebreus,’ 506, 

Crystal, quartz, and flint as acids, 


9. 
Culefta puncta, 658. 
Cuneiform inscriptions, 3, 4, 5. 
=e TO ein, LOO; 
Cupid and Dipuc, 517. 
Cuprum, copper, used in 3rd century, 
292. 
Cura, tath, and care, 28. 
Curr, on the Australian race, 189. 
Curtius on Lautverschiebung, 264. 
Cute, 73. 
Cuvier on Nature, 696. 
Cyclopes, 502, 512 n. 
Cyning and cyng, 32T. 
Cyrus, cuneiform inscriptions of, 


3) 4- 
Czermak, Professor, 137 n. 
— on the guttural sounds in Arabic, 
147. 
— on hard consonants, 155. 
Czermak’s articles, 91. 
— on letters, 94. 


D, not used in Chinese, &c., 178. 


720 


D, changed to t, 254. 

Dacia, change of qu into p in, 
190. 

Dacota language, b and p in, 189, 

DAH, to burn, 270, 

Dai in Cochin Chinese, 31. 

Jais, to burn, 239. 

Daisy, 355. 

Daiva, fate, 570. 

Damage, I, bléptd, 424. 

Damianus, Petrus, on _ barnacles, 
676, 

Danaé, story of, 556. 

Danebrog, or red cross of Denmark, 
688 x. 

Danser and tanzen, 332. 

Dante on the influence of women 
on language, 44. 

Daphne, 621 n. 

DAR, 233. 

Darayavus, Darius, 233. 

Dare, to, 244. 

Darius, cuneiform inscriptions of, 


~ 


Darling, 17. 

Darrigol, Abbé, on the Bask Lan- 
guage, 247. 

Darwin on Natural Selection, 399, 
403. : 

Daséa, 89. 

Dat, tooth, Sk., 328. 

Dauns, vapour, 239. 

Dawn, the, 474. 

— Zora, a name for, 476. 

— called asva, the mare, 485. 

— compared to a horse, 603. 

— riddle of the, 617. 

— the, image and visage of immor- 
tality, 618. 

— or Aditi, 619. 

— the, sprang from the head of 
Dyu, 623. 

— Matita, name for the, 625. 

— twin-mother, name for the, 628. 

— various names for the, 637. 

Day and Night, as twins, 631. 

Dead and death, 277. 

Deaf and dumb, the, 79, 80. 

— — Dr. Itart on the, 79 n. 

— — Heinieke, on the, 80. 


INDEX, 


Déguerpir, werfen, 332. 

Deichsel, A.S. thisl, 466. 

Deitu, Umbrian, from dicito, 202 

Delabialise, to, 116 n. 

De L’ Hopital, 53. 

Delos, or Ortygia, 626. 

Demeter is not Ge-meter, mother- 
earth, 638 n. 

— Erinys, 638. 

— the Dawn, 638. 

Democritus, 369. 

Dentals exist in every language, 
178. 

Dé6 was Dyava, 638. 

Descartes, his universal language, 
“On. 

Desert, maru, 414. 

Deuten, 240. 

Deutsch, German, 240. 

Deva, bright, 568. 

Devil, gipsy for god, 357 n. 

Devils, strange gods in the Old 
Test. are called, 531 n. 

DHAR, lost in most Aryan lan 
guages, 233. 

Dhatu, 376, 377 n. 

DHIGH, 269. 

DHU, DU, and TU, 2309. 

Dialect of Henneberg, Io. 

Dialectic regeneration, 29. 

— growth and phonetic change, 
difference between, 183. 

— the natural state of language, 
184. 

— change, 184. 

— growth beyond the control of 
individuals, 219. 

Dialects ofA ncient Northumbria,2 n. 

— manly and feminine, 45. 

— importance of modern, 306, 307, 
308, 324. 

Diana for divana, 567. 

Die, I, mor-i-or, 413. 

Diespiter, 567. 

Diez, his Comparative Grammar of 
the Romanic Languages, 306, 

Difference between animal and 
infant, 71. 

Different treatment for different 
stages of language, 26. 


INDEX. 


Different words take the same form 
in different languages, 352. 

— words may take the same form 
in one and the same language, 


Diipétés, name for Zeus, 546. 

Dionysius Thrax on Stoicheia, 374. 

Diosémia, 546. 

Diovis, old Italian name for Jupiter, 
506. 

Diphthongs, 131. 

Dis, 309. 

Distich, 372. 

Diti, from da, to cut, 619 n. 

Dit, 565. 

Dium for divum, 567. 

Diupitha, depth, 275. 

Diuscule, a little while, 565. 

Dius Fidius, 538 n. 

Diutule, a little while, 565. 

DIV, 567. 

Diva, by day, 541. 

Dividua, mute letters sometimes 
called, 153. 

Divine, the, embraces the whole of 
nature, 498. 

Divinus, 567. 

Dlory, for glory, 199. 

Dobrizhoffer and the language of 
the Abipones, 417. 

Dodona and Libya, sanctuaries of 
Zeus at, 501. 

Dog-afore-his-maister, 582 n. 

Dog-ahin’s-maister, 582 n. 

Dogs in Mallicolo at first called 
pigs, 405. 

— of Yama, 594. 

Dolichocephalic language, 296 n. 

Domus Aurea, 313. 

Donders on pitch, 112. 

Doom, 244. 

Dor, desire, in Wallachian, 426 n. 

Double consonants, 207. 

— avoided in Finnish, 210. 

— initial, 212-214. 

Doubt, dubium, 439. 

Dravidian syllabation, 211. 

Dreoh-l&can, A.S., magicians, 569 n. 

Droop, to, marcere, 422. 

Dru, Sk., wood, 283. 


721 


DRUH? 277. 

Druh, mischief, 569. 

Dru-m, Old High German, end, 
2335 

Dry, magician, 569 n. 

Dryis, a Druid, 569 n. 

Du, from de illo, 219. 

Dubius, 248. 

Du Bois-Reymond, go. 

Du Cange, his dictionary, 299. 

Duellum, 309. 

DUH, to milk, 271. 

Duke, 318. 

Duo, 309. 

Dust, mrid, 424. 

Dyaus, 537 7, 542. 

— both masculine and feminine, 

— wis iN the result of radical or 
poetical] metaphor, 559. 

Dyaush-pitar, Zeus patér, Jupiter, 
Tyr, 537, 542- 

Dyavaprithivi, Heaven and Earth, 
606. 

Dyé, misery, 239. 

Dynamic or functional distinctions 
of vowels and _ consonants, 
TEs 

Dyu, sky, day, 539. 

— above Indra, 542. 

— father of Indra, 545. 

— the light, 562. 

— the root, 563. 

Dyunisiu, day and night, 605. 


E, how produced, 128. 
Ealdor, 318 n. 
Ear and tongue, 121. 
Earl, 317. 
Earth, the, 694. 
Eau morte, 415. 
Echelle, 216. 
Kelater, 564 n. 
crevisse, 337. 
Edge, 175. 
Edontes and odontes, 328. 
Egg, 355. 
Ego, how expressed in Chinese, 


357. 


iM ZA 


722 


Egypt, the primitive home of the 
Hottentots, 10. 

Egyptian, no formal distinction 
between noun, verb, adjective 
&c. in, 378. 

Ehu, Old Saxon, horse, 74. 

Ki, egg, 355. 

Eisen, 293. 

Ekelhaft, 309. 

Eland, elk, 459 n. 

Eld, 201 n. 

Elder, 318, 318 n. 

Eldomai, to die for a thing, 426. 

Elementa, formed from 1, m, n, 
371. 

Elements, true meaning of, 369. 

— Aristotle on, 369, 370. 

Hlementum, or Stoicheion, 371. 

— etymology of, 371, 374. 

‘Edéva, had an initial digamma, 587. 

Elentier, élan, 459 2. 

Elk, alces, élaho, 459 n. 

Ellis, Mr. A. J., go, 93. 

Ellis’s ‘ Paleeotypic Alphabet,’ 113. 

Elysium or Leuke, 621 n, 694 ”. 

Embarrassed, 336. 

Embers, A.S. emyrian, 202. 

Emir, 300 n. 

HuLpwva, semi-vowels, 88. 

Empedocles, 497. 

Encenia, 366 

Encore, 326. 

End replaced by ing, 21, 21 n. 

Ende, change of, to ing, 19, 20. 

Endekrist, for Antichrist, 653. 

Engage, 334. 

Engine-driver, 288. 

English, Romanic sounds in, 174. 

— number of consonants in, 181, 

— phonetic changes in, from A.S., 
201. 

— Latin or French words in, 201. 

— German elements in, 332, 333. 


— when Latin elements came into, © 


338. 
— Homonymes in, 362. 


Ennius, 547. 

Ens for sens, 440. 
Entretenir, 344. 
Entzwei, 308. 


INDEX, 


Kos, Ushas, 474. 
pée, 216. 
peron, 331. 

Epicbarmus and Greek mythology, 
497: 

Hpicanite on letters and atoms, 369. 

— on sounds of words, 382. 

— on language, 398. 

— on the gods, 492. 

Epiglottis, 103. 

Equip, 336. 

Equus from Sk. asva, 74. 

Erfahrung, gefahr, 84. 

Eriboia, 585 n. 

Erigone, the early born, 585 n. 

— led by a dog, Maira, 585 n. 

Erikapaeos, 611. 

Erinys, 692, 693. 

Eros, 486. 

Erse, dew, 522. 

Erz, O.H.G. ar-uzi, 293. 

Escabeau, instead of scabellum, 
216. 

Esse, étre, 446. 

Essentia, 440 2. 

— Cicero responsible for the word 
440 0. 

Est, 363. 

Estienne, Henri, ‘Traicte de la Con- 
formité du Langage Francois 
avec le Grec, 300 n. 

Estudium, for studium, 215, 

Ether, 712. 

Ethical interpretations of mytho- 
logy, 495. 

ire, Latin esse, 446. 

Etymology, Voltaire’s definition of, 
298. 

— guessing, 298. 

— tests in, 302. 

— independent of sound, 303. 

— charm of, 312. 

— popular, 651. 

— — follows phonetic decay, 651. 

Eu in French, 6 in German, 131. 

EKuhemerism, 499, 500. 

Euhemerus, 499, 500. 

puuiaios knows only of just gods, 
526. 

Euphony, 202. 


I 


INDEX. 120 


Euripides on the gods, 493. 
Europa, carried off by Zeus, 557. 
Euryphaéssa, wide-shining, 522. 
Ever, 310. 

Experiment, 84. 

Eye, 355. 

— éage, auge, 355. 


F, wanting in various languages, 
178, 179, 179 n. 

— sometimes changed to c in Sicilian, 
I9I n. 

— in Latin, harsh sound of, 203 ». 

Face, facies, 77. 

Facon, 341. 

Faint, to, mirkh, 413, 

Faith, 710. 

— or sensus numinis, 549. 

False analogy, 221 n. 

Fare thee well, 250. 

Farrar on the onomatopeic names 
of animals, 387. 

Farthing, 17. 

Fas, 245. 

Fashion, changes of, 402. 

Fast, fest, 310. 

Father of gods and men, 553. 

Fatum, a mere name, 533. 

Faucon, hawk, 288. 

Feather, 250. 

— and pen, 350. 

Feature, factura, 77. 

Feeble, mélys, 413. 

Feitu for facito, 202, 

Fel, hel, 243. 

Female characters use Prakrit in 
Sanskrit plays, 44. 

Feodor and Theodor, 196. 

Ferch, oak, blood, life, 283, 294. 

Fercha, name for oak, 283. 

Feridin, or Thraétana, 643. 

— transition of Thraétana into, 644. 

Feu, late, 359. 

— fatutus, 359. 

— fire, 515. 

Few, 251. 

Fiend, 389. 

Filomena for filomela, 660. 

Fin, 360. 

Fine spun, 349. 


Finis, from findere, or from figere, 
709. 

Finnish, no fin, 179. 

— double consonants avoided in 
210. 

— Dr. Thomson’s researches in, 
257, 257 1. 

— word for thumb gradually meant 
finger in, 404. 

— word for waterberry gradually 
meant berry in, 404. 

Fiore and fiume in Sicilian, 191 1. 

Fobre, 294. 

Fir, oak, and beech, 282, 294. 

— in Denmark, 284. 

Fire-arms and hawks, 288, 289. 

Fish, pihi, Hawaiian, 186. 

Flamen, the priest, 348. 

Flames, and horse, same name for, 

pe 

Flatz, blown letters of von Raumer, 
142. 

Florio on barnacles, 665. 

Ford, frd, fird, in Oxford, 130. 

Forgetting, 704. 

Form, change of, 307. 

Foul, 389. 

Foundling, 17. 

Fourfold modification of consonants, 
BOT 3 3) 

Fourier on compound vibrations, 
IOI, 

Fraile and fragile, 341. 

Frederick Barbarossa, 657. 

Frederick the Great, 657. 

French, participle present not to be 
declined in, 22. 

— terminations in, 56. 

— words beginning with h and g in, 
r7ds 

— peasant pronunciation of, 198. 

— Teutonic words in, 321, 322. 

— Latin words in, 340-342. 

Fresco, 336. 

Fresh, frisky, brisk, 335, 339. 

Friend, 251. 

Friendly Islands, 178 n. 

Frisky, 335, 339. 

Froment, wheat, 76. 

Frumentum, corn, 76. 


d 


342 


724 


Fuitus, 359. 

Full, A.S.; ptr-nd, Sk., 277. 
Fulness of time, the, 535. 
Fumus, smoke, 239. 

Fundo, fttilis, 244. 


Gaf, giban, 276. 

Gage, 334. 

Gairan, to desire, 238. 

Galan, to yell, 238. 

Gall, bile, 243. 

Ganaka, Sk., father, corresponds 
with king, 321. 

Gandharva or Vivasvat, 600, 601. 

Gani, Sk., queen, 321. 

GAR, 237, 238. 

Garnett, on words from inflected 
cases, 18 n. 

— on the Indo-European participle, 
25, 25 n. 

’ Garshasp or Keregaspa, 643. 

' Gater, 335. 

Gegend, 346. 

Gehenna, 299, 366. 

Gender and gendre, 202. 

Géner, from gehenner—gehenna, 
299. 

Genera and species, Locke on, 72 n. 

General principles of Science of 
Language contested, 6. 

George and Cannon, 653 n. 

Géranos, 449. 

Gerarde, John, on barnacles, 665. 

Gerda, legends of, 475 n. 

Geréfa, 319 n. 

German words in French, 331. 

— Romanised, 336. 

— tribes, mentioned by Tacitus, 


573: 

Germans, their worship of the un- 
known God, 549. 

— their worship of T¥r, 570. 

— their gods Tuisco and Mannus, 
571. 

— their shield-songs, 572. 

— their chief tribes, 573. 

— their fables of Tuisco, &c., 574. 

Gervasius of Tilbury on barnacles, 
672: 

Gh into kh, transition of, 233 n. 


INDEX, 


GHAR and HAR, 237, 469. 

Ghrind, heat of the sun, 470. 

Ghrita, ghee, melted butter, 469. 

Giraldus Cambrensis on barnacles, 
674. 

Girls, host of the, 632. 

Gladstone’s Theory, 507. 

— letter to M. M., 507-511. 

Gleam, A.S. gli-mo, 470 n. 

Glory, dlory, 199. 

Glottis, 106. 

Gna, gana, Sk., to know, 213, 515. 

Goat and Compasses, 653. 

Go-dhfiima, smoke of the earth= 
wheat, 75. 

God, from good, 356. 

— various names for, 549, 550. 

Gods, Greek teaching on the, 489- 
494- 

— nee of, still intelligible in the 
Veda, 522. 

Gold, names for, 293. 

— silver and copper, known before 
the Aryan separation, 293. 
Golden-handed, name for the sun, 

480. 
Goldfusz, name for bear, 463. 
Golpe and volpe, It., 335 n. 
Good and God, 356. 
Goose, 244. 
Gorgons, 599. 
God, 357. 
Gothic, end of first century a.D., 
253. 
— roots ending in mediz, 269. 
— Verner on changes in, 275. 
Gotter, gutter, 131 n. 
Gottingen, 16. 
Gotze, 357. 
— from g6z, 357 n. 
Government, 316. 
Gowt, gosse, 654 n. 
Graf, 318, 319 n, 320 n. 
Grain, olaf, 418, 
Grammar in Negro English, 225. 
Granum, 247. 
Grassmann on Grimm’s Law, 268. 
Grassmann’s Law, 270. 
— translation of the Rigveda, 519. 
Gravio, 318. 


INDEX. 


Great Bear, the, 459. 

— called the Elephant by the Ka- 
rens, 460 n. 

— various names for, 460-464. 

Grecian Stairs at Lincoln, 654. 

Greek classitication of letters, 87. 

— aspirates, old, 160. 

—— consonants in, 181. 

— allows but three consonants as 
finals, 195. 

— Qh, fr, s, as terminations in, 195. 

— theories on Language, 394. 

— giants, 417. 

— words, drop m at the beginning, 
417. 

— culture and Greek religion, con- 
trast between, 487. 

— philosophers, protests of, 489. 

— and Hindu deities, 516. 

— religion, 526. 

— religion ag judged by Chris- 
tianity, 531. 

— meaning of Zeus, 548. 
Greenland, murder of males and 
change of language in, 46. 

Greesen, plur., 655 n. 

Greffier, graphiareus, 320 7. 

Grimm, on the manly and feminine 
character of High and Low 
German, 45. 

— on Grimm’s Law, 263. 

— Tables of Lautverschiebung in 
Old High German, 267. 

Grimm’s Law, 228-230. 

— — facts of, 228. 

— — theory of, 251. 

— — in Africa and Polynesia, 258. 

— — in Tamil and Kanarese, 260. 

— — Grimm on, 263. 

— — Bopp on, 263. 

— — Curtius on, 264. 

— — Scherer on, 264. 

— — Lottner on, 267. 

— — Grassmann on, 268. 

— — exceptions to, 267, 277. 

Grimper, 332. 

Grof, graban, 276. 

Grom, the thunder, 417. 

‘Gronland’ by Cranz, name in, for 
Great Bear, 461 7. 


725 


Grotefend and the cuneiform in- 
scriptions, 4. 

Guado from watan, 334. 

Guarani languave, 36. 

Gubernare, 316. 

Guépe, 335. 

Guére, 335. 

Guerre and war, 331. 

Guessing etymology, 2098. 

Guichard’s ‘Harmonie Etymolo- 
gique,’ 301, 

Guile and wile, 333. 

Guise and wise, 333. 

Gun, 388. 

Gutter, gosse, 654 n. 

Gutturals, 177. 

— absent in some dialects, 177. 


H, how formed, 136. 

H, f, words in, in English, 249. 

Hand gui, French words beginning 
with, 174. 

H in Sk., the neutral exponent of 
guttural, dental, and labial soft 
aspirates, 621, 

— and dh, interchanged, 622. 

Hafoc, hawk, 201. 

Haha, 332. 

Halate, exhaled letters of von 
Raumer, 142 n. 

Hale on the custom of Te pi, 40. 

— Horatio on doubtful articula- 
tions, 192. 

Hale and wholesome, 356. 

Hale’s ‘ Polynesian Grammar,’ 260n. 

Hameau, 332. 

Hamilton, Sir W., on annihilation, 
442 2. 

— on metaphysical words, 703. 

Hammer, marcus, 422. 

Handsaw for hernshaw, 658. 

HAR from GHAR, 237. 

Harangue, 336. 

Hari and harit, 470. 

Haris, horses of Indra, 471. 

Harits, horses of the sun, 471-473. 

— have beautiful wings, 473. 

— with beautiful wings, 485. 

— and Charites, Mr. Cox on, 486 n. 

Harlingen, 16, 16 n. 


720 


Harmonics, 99. 

— one vibration without, IoT. 

Hart, 2409. 

Harvey Islands or Raratonga, 178 n. 

Haryati, Sk., he desires, Gk. thélei, 
Goth. wiljan, 484. 

Hater, 332. 

Havyai, how pronounced, 135. 

Havresack, 331. 

Haw, haie, 332. 

Hawaian, catch of the breath in, 173. 

— pronunciation of certain letters, 
185, 186. 

— to testify in, 384. 

—no distinction between certain 
colours in, 403. 

— one name for love, esteem, &c., 
in, 404. 

Hawaii, or Sandwich Islands, 177 n. 

Hawk from hafoc, 201. 

‘ Hawk from a handsaw,’ 658. 

Hear, to, 326. 

Heart, 249. 

Heaven and God, almost synony- 
mous, 551. 

Hebrew, consonants in, 181. 

Hecateus, 500. 

Hegel, on thinking in names, 83. 

Heimgang, 575. 

Helena, the Indian Saraméa, 586. 

Helle-kin, 657. 

Helmholtz, Prof., 101, 110, 112. 

—on the exact configuration of 
vibrations, 101. 

—onrand], 149. 

Helmholtz’s ‘Tonempfindungen,’ 91. 

Hemiphona, 149. 

Henneberg, dialect of, 19. 

Hephestos, Charis and Aphrodite, 
his wives, 473. 

Heraclitus, 84. 

— on language, 394, 395. 

—on the teaching of Homer and 
Archilochus, 490. 

Hériquié for (ie 198. 

Hermes, 577, 5 

— note on, i Michel Bréal, 591 n. 

— and Saraméya start from the 
same point, 592. 

— loves Herse, the dew, 593. 


INDEX, 


Herminones, German tribe, 573. 

Hermogenes, 393. 

Hernshaw, 658. 

Herodotus, his mythological inter- 
pretations, 501. 


Herold, héralt, hérault, 331. 


Herschel, Sir John, and the Urvocal, 
130. 

Herschel, Sir John, ‘Treatise on 
Sound,’ of. 

Herse, the dew, loved by Hermes, 593. 

Hervey islanders, name for old age, 
635. 

Heureux, 301. 

Hibernicule, name for _barnacle 
goose, 680. 

Hierlekin, 657. 

Hieroglyphic writing, 80. 

High and Low German, manly and 
feminine character of, 45. 

— front vowels, 117. 

— mixed vowels, 117. 

— back vowels, 118. 

— German, is it derived from 
Gothic? 261. 

— — Braune on, 262. 

Hight, O.H., for A.S. héht, 203 n. 

Hilda Stories, 475 n. 

Hindu and Greek mythology, 518. 

Hips and haws, 332. 

Hircus, fircus, 441 n. 

Hireling, 17. 

Historical interpretations, 499. 

— school, 432, 433. 

Hlaif from hlaib, 276. 

Hlonipa, to be bashful, 43 n. 

Homer and Hesiod, their views of 
the gods, 489, 490-491. 

— Heraclitus on, 490. 

— and Pythagoras, 491. 

— religious life at the time of, 526. 

Homeric poems banished by Plato 
from his Republic, 492. 

Homonyma or namesakes, 453. 

Homonymy and Polyonymy, 453, 
700. 

Hordeum and fordeum, 441 n. 

Horne Tooke, 434, 436. 

Horse, no trace of neighing in the 
Aryan names for, 73. 


INDEX. 


Horses of the sun, 471. 

— of Indra, 471. 

— of Agni, 471. 

Hottentot, a branch of the North 
African languages, Io. 

— Dr. Moffat on, 10 n. 

— consonants in, 209, 

Hottentots come from F Egypt, 10 7. 

Huet, ‘Demonstratio Evangelica,’ 
506, 

Humanitas, 691. 

Hurlewayne’s meyné, 657. 

Huron language, no n in, 178. 

— — nor in, 180. 

Hurons use of the letter f, 176 n. 

— have no labials, 176. 

Hurt, to, mark, 423. 

Huxley on skulls, 296 7. 

Hypénoia, or under-meaning, 498. 


I, how produced, 129. 

‘I, Jean Paul on, 446n. 

‘Tam,’ 245. 

Ich kann, ich kenne, 214. 

‘ Idéographie’ of Sinibaldo de Mas, 


55+ 

Iflatan for Platon, 212. 

Ignorance, 705. 

I goed, I comed, I catched, 220. 

Ikarius, 585 n. 

Tl and elle, 341. 

Ile =il, le, 341. 

Illness, morbus, 414. 

Imagine, 436. 

Imago, picture, for mimago, 437° 

Imbulare, 361. 

Immortality, ambrosia, 413. 

Imponderable substances, 711. 

Imsonic theory, 383. 

Indians invent new modes of speech, 

8. 

Indifferentiated letters, 185, 198. 

Indo-European participle, Mr. Gar- 
nett on, 25, 25 7. 

Indra, 539, 540. 

— above Dyu, 543. 

— admits of only one etymology, 
543 n. 

— son of Dyu, 545. 

— called Suna, 597. 


120 


Indragni, Indra and Agni, 613. 

— Nasatyau, 615. 

Indras, the two, 613. 

Indu, Sk. root, 543 n. 

Infants and animals, 71. 

Infantine analogy, 220. 

—grammar in French dialects, 
2217. 

Infinite, the, 619, 708. 

— a negative idea, 708. 

Infinitive in Bengali, 23. 

Ing, the modern termination, 14, 
Ph 7. 

— encroached on ung, 17. 

— from ende, 20. 

— Bopp on, 21 n. 

Ingeevones, German tribe, 573. 

Ingannare, 310. 

Initial double consonants in Hebrew, 


2U2. 

—-—-— jin the Aryan languages, 
214. 

In-stigare, stimulus, and _stilus, 
373+ 


Integer, 348. 

Intelligo, inter-ligo, 72. 

Interjections, the precursors of 
speech, 51. 

Intoxication, 364 7. 

Involare, 361. 

*I6s, Gk., arrow and poison, 364. 

Irmin, Irmino, 574. 

Iron, parasava, Sk., 289 n. 

— in New Zealand, 291. 

— not. known before the separation 
of the Aryan tribes, 291. 

— known before the Homeric poems, 
290. 

— derivation of word, 293. 

Tron Devil, 653 n. 

Iroquois pronunciation of penny, 
177, 

Isceevones, German tribe, 573. 

Island, 355. 

— iland, iglond, églond, 355. 

Ispiritus, 215. 

Italian, why used for literature, 
instead of Latin, 44. 

— laws which govern the transition 
of Latin into, 342. 


728 


Italian letters, Dr. Bolza on the 
meaning of, 385. 
Itart, Dr., on the deaf and dumb, 


[D1 ape ee 
I was, Gothic wisan, 447. 


Jacobus Achonensis or Jacob de 
Vitriaco, 672. 

J’aimerai, 308. 

Jan, older form of Janus, 566. 

Jan-us, 566. 

Janus matutinus, 567. 

Japanese, no 1 in, 180. 

Jarl, 317,322. 

Je, 311, 445. 

Jean Paul, on ‘I,’ 446 n. 

Jemshid or Yima-Kshaéta, 643. 

Jerusalem artichokes, 468. 

Jewel, joyau, 342 n. 

Jews on barnacle geese, 671. 

Jima, in the Avesta, 643 n. 

Joie, 3427. 

Jones, Sir William’s, alphabet, 167, 
169, 170. 

— on the identity of Sanskrit and 
Greek mythology, 517, 517 n. 

J ovis, 537 n. 

Judgment, animals have, 71. 

Julien, on the word ego in Chinese, 
35 2. 

Jumala, thunderer, 551. 

Jument, mare, 76, 77. 

Jumentum, beast of burden, 76. 

Jain-6, Zenon, 567. 

Junonius, 566. 

Jupiter Pistor, 418 n. 

— and Dyu, 566. 


K, palatal, velar, and guttural, 279. 

K and g, no distinction between, in 
several languages, 177. 

K, t, p, words in, in Gothic and 
asad ye 

K and t, 185, 198. 

— Chamisso on, 185. 

— in Egyptian, 192. 

K’s, six in a physiological alphabet, 
123) 

_ Kafir language, 11, 43 n, 46. 

— women, language of, 43, 46. 


INDEX. 


Kafir language, certain names not 
used, 46. 

— tongues, no r in the, 180. 

— words, 210. 

— metaphors, 437. 

Kaigdni language, 177 n. 

Kalaisi for Christ in Polynesian, 
180. 

Kalein, Greek, and to call, 28. 

Kalla, to call, 238. 

Kallisto, 478. 

— mother of Arkas, 557. 

— national deity of the Arcadians, 


57: 

Kapi, vapour, 611 n. 

Kar, to make, 239. 

Karen name for the Great Bear, 
460 n. 

Kari and kona, man and wife, 323. 

kapmdés and herbist, 280. 

Katara, hwadar, hwathar, 275. 

Kelly’s Indo-European Tradition 
and Folk-lore, 640. 

Kephalargia and lethargia, 205. 

Kerberos and Orthros, 595. 

Kerpi, Lituanian, 280. 

Key, Professor Hewitt, on Sanskrit, 
IIn, 

KHAN, to dig, 241. 

Khaya, shadow, wife of Vivasvat, 
602. 

KHID, to cut, 271. 

Ki li sse tu, for Christ, 179. 

Kin, 247. 

Kind, for genus, 691. 

King, 321, 322: 

— by the grace of God, 556. 

Kingsley, Charles, quoted, 575. 

— Norman W., 124. 

Kiri, desire, 238. 

Kleanthes, view of the universe, 


553+ 
Klotho, 694. 
Knife, neipa, Hawaian, 186. 
Knight, 318. 
Know, to, 704. 
Knowing, not reasoning, 83. 
Knowledge of God, 705, 
Kon-r, youngest son of Jarl, 322. 


| Kratys, strong, 239. 


IN DEX, 


Krebs, 337. 

Kronos, swallowed his own children, 
488. 

— father of Zeus Kronion, 544. 

Kt in Sk. liable to change to ks, 
459: 

Kuhn, Dr., on Sarama, 577. 

— — on Saranyf, 645. 

Kuning, 322. 

Kyavana, name for the sun, 632, 
632 n. 

Kyriake = church, 338. 


L, how produced, 149. 

— pronounced as r or n, 193, 204, 
205. 

— unknown in several languages, 
180. 

Labial glide, 279. 

Labialising languages do not assibi- 
late, 280. 

Labials unknown to Mohawks and 
Hurons, 176. 

Lachesis, 694. 

Lachné and lana, 348. 

Lady, 317 n. 

Lelia, using the language of Plautus 
and Nevius, 44. 

Lafavardr, Old Norse, 317 n. 

Lana, from rak and lak, 348 2. 

Langlois’ translation of the Rig- 
veda, 519. 

Language, Science of, general prin- 
ciples of the, contested, 6. 

— — a physical science, 7. 

— Polynesian the original, 9, 11. 

— Leibniz on the study of, 12. 

— principles of the science of, 14. 

— limits of analogy in, 25. 

— influence of women on, 43. 

— value of Sanskrit in the study of, 
48, 49. 

— importance for the Science of 
Thought, 49. 

— the body of, 50. 

— the soul of, 50. 

— an artificial, 52. 

— an universal, 52. 

— and thought, jo. 

— Brown on, 78, 702. 


729 


| Language, no reason without, 78. 


— and thought, Locke on, 81.. 

— natural state of, always dialectic, 
184. 

— roots as the elements of, 369. 

— of children, 380. 

— Greek theories on, 394. 

— Heraclitus on, 394, 395. 

— Epicurus on, 398. 

— Locke on, 430, 7or. 

— influence of, 647. 

—- influence of, on thought, 700. 

Languages, African, 10. 

— alliteral, 11. 

— modern, Leibniz on, 12. 

— two branches of, with a manly 
and feminine character, 45. 

— the mirror of the human mind, 


49. 

Lanio, a butcher, 348. 

Larme, tear, 303, 327. 

Laryngoscope, use of, 102. 

Larynx, 103, 132. 

Latin, consonants in, 181. 

— future in bo, 308. 

— dialect, spread of, 312. 

— words, history of some, 313. 

— entered English at four periods, 
338. 

Lautverschiebung, is it due to pho- 
netic decay or dialectic growth ? 
228, 

— examples of, 241. 

— is dialectic growth, 253. 

— Grimm’s High German tables, 
267. 

— as Nacheinander, 278. 

Laut-wandel and Laut-wechsel, 182. 

Lavard, master, 317 n. 

L’avenir, 345. 

Law, lex, from lah, to lay down, 
245. 

Lawes, on the Motu tribe, 193. 

Laziness, its effect on language, 
200, 

Leblanc, experiments on, 133. 

Legere, 71. 

Leibniz, 12, 49, 52. 

— his Spécieuse générale, 52. 

— his characteristics, 53. 


730 


Leibniz, quotes Bishop Wilkins, 547. 

Lepadide, 662. 

Le Page Renouf, on Sir G. C. Lewis, 
aie 

Lepsius, go. 

— his common alphabet, 165. 

‘Let fly at a thing,’ 289. 

Letters, Greek, 87. 

— what formed of, 163. 

— how formed, 163. 

— which do not exist among the 
Mohawks, 176. 

— wanting in various languages, 
177, 177 2, 178, 179. 

— number of, in different languages, 
180, 

-— indifferentiated, 185. 

— never become, 188. 

— compared with atoms of nature, 
360. 

— Epicurus on, 369. 

— Aristotle on, 369. 

Leucippus, 369. 

Leuke, called also Achilléa, 621. 

Lewis, Sir G. C.’s, attack on Cham- 
pollion, 3 n. 

L’huile de ricin, 658. 

— d’Henry Cinq, 658. 

Liccian, A.S., lik, Sk., 277. 

Lichtenberg and the cuneiform in- 
scriptions, 4. 

Lightning, the god of, alone wor- 
shipped by the Slaves, 550. 

Ling, the derivative, 17. 

Lingvo Esperanto, 69. 

Liparés, fat, then lovely, 476. 

Lis, litis, how pronounced by the 
Romans, 215. 

Lithan, to go, A.S. lédan, to lead, 
274. 

Littré, on M.M.’s view of the origin 
of the Romanic languages, 3467. 

Locative, supplying the place of the 
participle present, 22. 

Locke, 81, 434. 

— on genera and species, 72 n. 

— admits that most men use words 
in thinking, 81. 

— on language, 430, 7oI. 

-— on forgetting, 704. 


INDEX. 


Locke’s philosophy, 81. 

Locus, from stlocus, 215. 

Logos, reason, 71. 

— from légein, 71. 

Loham ayas, bright metal, 292. 

Dord 317731747, 

Lottner, on Grimm’s Law, 267. 

Loudness of a note, 95. 

Louer, from laudare, 360. 

— from locare, 360. 

Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, 2 n. 

Lover (garah), name for the rising 
sun, 633. 

Low front vowels, 117. 

— mixed vowels, 117. 

— back vowels, 118. 

Lowest note we hear, 95. 

Lucetium, 560 n. 

Lucina, 347. 

Ludwig’s translation of the Rigveda, 
520. 

Luna, losna, 77. 

— the moon, 347. 

Lyell’s ‘ Antiquity of Man,’ 283. 


M, Helmholtz’s observations on, 
158 n. 

# never stands before A and p, 
202”. 

M, Greek words drop it, 417. 

‘Mad Mare’s Hill,’ 652. 

Maestro, mestree, from magister, 
202. 

Magister, 316. 

Magnus, Albertus, on barnacles, 

668 n, 673, 676. 

Mai, mais, mes, 360. 

Maier, Count, his book on the Tree 

Bird, 678. 

Maisnie Hellequin, 657. 

Maitri, love, pronounced ag maikree, 
199 n. 

Mala, from maxilla, 349. 

Malade, 345. 

Malak6s, 422. 

Malapte, 345. 

Malays of Celebes, 37. 

— — Wallace on, 37. 

Malheur, mal-aiir, 302. 


Malma, sand, 424. 


INDEX, 


Malt or melt, 428. 

Manare, the rising sun, 625. 

Mandarin, not Chinese, 179. 

— from Sk. mantrin, 179. 

Manducare, 386. 

Mane, morning, 624. 

Mangiare, 385. 

Manly and feminine dialects, 45. 

Mannu, morning-light, 571. 

Mannus, son of Earth, 571. 

Manu Vaivasvata, 6o1. 

— Savarni, 601, 630. 

Maori proverbs on death, 636. 

MAR, 408 et seq. 

— as transitive, 411. 

— as intransitive, 412. 

— various ramifications of, 413. 

— meaning ‘to propitiate,’ 448. 

Marainé, 412. 

Marasmés, 412. 

Marcere, to droop, 422. 

Marcus, a hammer, 422. 

Mardh, 421. 

— &k., to forget, 428. 

Mare, sea, 415. 

Marg, or mrig, 421. 

Margara, Sk., cat, 421. 

Mark, to hurt, 423. 

Mar-na-mai, 412. 

Marquesas, called Nukuhiva, 178 n. 

Mars, Martis, 418, 419, 419 n. 

— Ares and the Maruts, 420, 

Maru, a desert, 414. 

Marut, the pounder, 418, 419. 

Maruts, Mars and Ares, 420. 

— spoken of as singers, 482. 

Marzjan, 425 . 

Maspero on k and t in Egyptian, 
192. 

Massacre, 331. 

Material meaning of words, 434. 

Materials for Science of Language, 


I. - 
MAatuta, the Dawn, 625. 
Maundeville on barnacles, 670. 
Mawle, the holy, 416 n. 
Meal, 411. 
— mola, 418. 
Meaning in sound, St. Augustine on, 
408 n. 


731 


Meaning, change of, 309. 
Meat, viands, 76. 

Meddix tuticus, 240. 

Mediz, or middle letters, 88. 
— b,d, g, 141. 

— or sonant checks, 153. 


| — roots in Gothic ending in, 269. 


Mékier for métier, 198. 

Melanesian languages, multiplicity 
of the, 37. 

— — Dr. Codrington on, 260. 

Mélgo, to milk, 422. 

Mellow, 424. 

Melville, Bell, 114. 

— — his systems of phonetics, 114. 

Membrum, 414. 

Méme =semetipsissimus, 227, 325. 

Memory, animals have, 71. 

Menage, his dictionary, 299. 

Mer, the sound in French, 359. 

Mésa, 89. 

Mestru, Umbrian, more corruptthan 
maestro for magister, 202. 

Metaphor, Locke’s views on, 434. 


' — Kafir, 437. 


— Cousin’s views, 444. 

— power of, 448. 

—a peculiarity of a whole period, 
449; 45°- 

— radical and poetical, 451. 

— homonymous and polyonymous, 
454, 455- 

— radical, 456. 

— poetical, 479. 

— distinction between radical and 
poetical, 482. 

Metaphorical period, 449. 

Metathesis, 191 n. 

Meteorological Mythology, 640. 

Métier, 316. 

Metrodorus, 498. 

Metz, Mediodunum, 652. 

Meubles, 76. 

Mexican language, 177 n. 

— no din, 178. 

—nor in, 180. 

— deities, 532. 

Mice, fable of the two white, 


594- 
_Mid-back vowels, 118. 


732 


Mid-front vowels, 117. 

-— mixed vowels, 117. 

Mild, soft, 426. 

Milk to, mélg6, 422. 

Mill, name for, from MAR, 411. 

Mill-teeth, mylitai, molares, 411. 

Minerva, 624. 

Minister, 316. 

Minos, parents of, 558. 

Minster, 338. 

Minstrel, 316. 

Miracles, Atineas Sylvius on, 667, 
677. 

— Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of, 
699. 

— St. Augustine on, 699. 

Missionary alphabet, 170. 

Mixteca language, 177 7. 

Mla, to wither, 422. 

Modern languages, study of, 12. 

— formations and languages, what 
is real in, is possible in ancient 
formations, 13, 14. 

— languages, usefulness of, 304. 

Moffat, Dr., on the Hottentots, 
Ion. 

Mohammed ben Musa, 340. 

Mohawks, letters which do not exist 
among the, 176. 

Moil of war, Mélos Aréos, 412. 

Moira, or fate, 474 n. 

Moiras, plurality of, 474 n. 

Mola, meal, 418. 

Molecular vibrations, 712. 

Molifones, 416. 

Moélops, a meal, 412. 

Moélos Aréos, moil of war, 412. 

Molys, feeble, 413. 

Monastery, 338. 

Monboddo, Lord, 547. 

Mongolian, consonants in, 181. 

— name for God, 550. 


Monosyllabic languages, musical 
accents in, 32. 
Mora, 414. 


Moray on barnacles, 663. 
Morbus, illness, 414. 
Mordecai on barnacles, 671. 
_ Mordére, to bite, 425. 
Mor-i-or, I die, 413. 


INDEX. 


‘Morning hour has gold in her 
mouth,’ 480. 

Méros, Gk., foolish, 423. 

Mos-quetto, mousquet, 288. 

Mother, 241, 241 n. 

Mother-tongue, Cicero on our, 44. 

Motu tribe, their pronunciation, 


193. 

Mradati, rubbing down, 424. 

Mrid, dust, 424. 

Mulcére, 422, 425. 

Mulciber, 425. 

— the smelter, 425. 

Mulgére, 422. 

Miller, Otfried, on the need of a 

' translation of the Rigveda, 
518. 

Miiller’s ‘Handbook of Physiology,’ 
gl. 

Munja, sister of Grom, 417. 

Munster, Sebastian, on barnacles, 


667. 

Minter and the cuneiform inscrip- 
tions, 4 

Mairddhanya, or cerebral letters, 
I5I”. 


Murder, 400, 414. 

Mark, to faint, 413. 

Musical accents in monosyllabic 
languages, 32. 

Musket, 288. 

Mutes or checks, 150. 

Matus, from Sk. mf, to bind, 
386. 

Mystery plays, 316. 

— from ministerium, 317. 

Myth of the barnacle goose, 662. 

— St. Christopher, 682. 

— St. Ursula, 684. 

— St. Bonaventura, 686. 

— St. George and St. Patrick, 687. 

Mythic period, 454, 455. 

— or mythological, 455. 

Mythology, ethical interpretations 
of, 495. 

— physical interpretations of, 496. 
— views of Greek philosophers on, 
497: 

— allegorical 
497. 


interpretations of, 


INDEX: 


Mythology, biblical interpretations 
of, 505. 

— philological interpretations of, 
Rigs 

— Abbé Banier on, 504. 

— Bochart on, 505. 

— Mr. Gladstone on, 507. 

— Comparative, 514. 

— encroached on ancient: religion,. 
525. 

— ancient religion independent of, 
526. 

— solar, 6309. 

— meteorological, 640. 

— changed into history, 643. 

—- ancient and modern, 650. 

— philosophical, 711. 

Myths of the Sun and Dawn, 621. 

— modern, 647. 

— abuse of words, 648. 

— Theoménia, 689. 


N, none in the Huron language, 178. 

— and ng, 156. 

— Czermak on, 158 n. 

N, r, s, as terminations in Greek, 
195. 

Nagel] and nail, 350. 

NAH, Sk., to bind, 364. 

— snu, nas, united in Gk. néd, 364. 

Naif and natif, 341. 

Name, derived by Grimm from 
nehmen, 515. 

Nameless gods, 549 n. 

Names, formation of, 73. 

— wit, not judgment, the guide in, 
74- | 

— are general terms, 403. 

Namo, Gothic, name, 515. 

NAS, Sk., to come, 364, 365. 

Nasal vowels, 133. 

Natural selection, 399, 403. 

Nature, 695. . 

— Buffon and Cuvier on, 696. 

— Dugald Stewart on, 698.“ 

Nausikaa, her trust in Zeus, 530. 

Naxos, the island, 365. 

Néant, 441. 

Nebeneinander and nacheinander, 


253. 


7393 


Negro English, 222-229. 

Neighing, no trace of, in the Aryan 
names for horse, 73. 

Néo, Gk., from three Sk. roots, 364. 

Neo-Latin, 306. 

Ne-pas, 441. 

Ne-point, 441. 

Neptune standing for fishes, 5.47. 

Neroberg or Nehrsberg, 653. 

Nesan, A.S. nerjan, 274. 

Nésos, island, 365. 

Neutral plurals changed into Ro- 
manic feminines, 342 n. 

Never, 310. 

Nie, 311. 

Night, called in Sk. Sarvari, 595. 

Nihil, 441,441 n, 443. 

Nirriti, the exodus, the land of 
death, 635. 

Nirvana, 443. 

Noél and natal, 341. 

Noises and tones, 94. 

— all consonants are, 135. 

Nomad languages, 47. 

Nomadic languages, necessity of 
change in, 36. 

Nomen and numen, 712. 

Non dum, not yet, 565 n. 

Noon, nona hora, 288. 

Nord, Sud, Est, Ouest, 332. 

Norman dialect, 332. 

No speech without reason, 78. 

Notes, their loudness and pitch, 95. 

Nothing, 441, 443. 

— and nuffing, 196. 

Numerals, Polynesian, 27. 

— — changes in, since Cook’s time, 
29. 

— tribes with only four, 72. 


O, sound of, 126. 

Oak, 283, 294-295. 

Ockford Shilling, Ockford Fitzpaine, 
and Childe Ockford, 655. 

Odéntes and edontes, 329. 

Oclgidtze, 357. 

Oeuvre, 342. 

Ofen, offnen, 131 n. 

Ohm, on the pendulous vibration, 
Iol. 


734 


Olaf, grain, 418. 

Old ‘age, how called by the Hervey 
islanders, 635. 

Old High German, age of, 252. 

— developed in 7th century, 254. 

Old Testament, devils in the, 531 n. 

Old words transferred to new things, 
288. 

On bec, Anglo-Saxon, 18. 

Onomatopeia, what the 
meant by, 391. 

— St. Augustine on, 408 n, 

Onomatopeic, 382. . 

— names of animals, Trumbull on 
the, 386. 

— — Farrar on the, 387. 

On the whole, kath hélon, 356. 

Oo, wool, 134”. 

Opera, 342, 342 2. 

Orang utan, 330. 

Ore, copper, 291. 

Orthros=Sk. Vritra, 595. 

Ortygia, 625. 

Oscan, five in, 307. 

Otyi-herero, various letters wanting 
ny ds 


Greeks 


P, how formed, 151. 

— in Gothic, 249. 

Paien and paysan, 347. 

Painting in sound, 384. 

Palace, 313. 

Palzotypic alphabet, A. J. Ellis’s, 
103) 

Palais, palate, 313. 

Palatal glide, 279. 

—k, 279. 

Palatum coeli, 314. 

Palestine soup, 468. 

Paley, F. A., editor of Euripides, 
508. 

Panhellenic Zeus, 546. 

Panis, 587. 

Papagei, the rock, 652. 

Paragraph, 339. 

Parallel variety, 182. 

Paris of Homer and Vedic Panis, 
587. 

PATcaavel 579 Nn. 

Parricide, 400. 


IN DEX. 


Participle present supplied by the 
locative, 22. 

— —in French, 22. 

— — in Bask, 24. 

— Mr. Garnett on the Indo-Euro- 
pean, 25, 25-2. 

Pascha, Gaelic Caisg, Welsh Pasg, 


255, 

Pasilingua, 60. 

Passy, Dr. Paul, 121. 

Past tense in Chinese, 36. 

— participles in Sanskrit, 274. 

Pathognomie, 383 x. 

Pati, fathi, fadi, 275. 

Patronymics formed in ing, 15. 

Patteson, Bishop, 37. 

Paukunnawaw or Great Bear, 461 n. 

Paul, Jean, on ‘I, 446n. 

— — on language, 415. 

— St., his sermon at Athens, 534. 

Paul’s Law, 276. 

Pausanias on Dodona, 502. 

Paysan and paien, 347. 

Peacock on English dialects, 2 n. 

Peat, age of, 286. 

Pectus and pectine changed to keptu 
and keptine, 191 7. 

Pé de Gré, pedigree, 655 n. 

Pedigree, 655 n. 

Pelasgians long had no names for the 
gods, 548. 

Peleiades, priestesses called, 502. 

Peleiz, or Peleiades, song of the, 552. 

Pen and Feather, 350. 

Penny, kwénis in Irroquois, 177. 

Penser, pensare, 341, 439. 

Pension, 341. 

Pente and quinque, 307. 

Perception, animals have, 71. 

— and sensation, 100. 

Percussions, 114. 

Perion’s ‘ Dialogi,’ 301. 

Peristasis, 344. 

Perkunas, synonymous with dei- 
vaitis, 550. 

Persian inscriptions, 3. 

— consonants in, 181. 

Peruvian, no d in, 178, 

Peser, 341. 

Pesna, 351. 


INDEX. 


Peto, Latin, and to bid, 28. 

Petrus Damianus on barnacles, 676. 

Pharynx, 132. 

Phégés, oak, 245. 

— fagus, 295. 

Philolaos, the famous Pythagorean 
philosopher, 396, 

Philological interpretation of my- 
thology, 512. 

Philosophical language of Bishop 
Wilkins, 53. 

—-mythology, 711. 

Phonautograph, the, 98. 

gwvyevta, vocales, 88. 

Phonéenta, 89. 

Phonetic laws, 27. 

— reform, 92. 

— change, causes of, 181-182, 200. 

— decay, 182-199. 

—change and dialectic growth, 
difference between, 183. 

— Idiosyncrasies, 193. 

— habits, 206. 

—and dialectic change causes for, 
216, 

— change, laws of, 217. 

— process for the settlement of a 
consonant system, 237. 

— types, 407. 

— decay is followed by popular 
etymology, 651. 

Phoneticians and  Elocutionisis, 
modern, go. 

Phonetics, Sk. works on, 809. 

— other works on, gon, 91. 

— noises and sounds, 94. 

— lowest and highest tones, vibra- 
tions in, 95, 96. 

— the siren, 97. 

— harmonics, 99. 

— organs of speech, 102 et seq. 

— vibrations of air, 108. 

— vowels, 109. 

— consonants, 118, 135, 

— breathings, 137. 

— trills, 148. 

— African clicks, 166 x. 

— muscular relation, 204. 

Phonograph, 122. 

Phy6, to grow, 447. 


735 


Physei and thései, 393. 

Physical interpretations of 
thology, 496. 

Physiological alphabet, 123. 

Pilcrow, pylerafte, and paraf, 339. 

Pilumnus, a pounder, 418 n. 

Pindar on the gods, 493. 

—on Zeus, 553. 

Pitch or height, 05. 

— peculiar to each vowel, 112. 

— Donders on, 112, 

Pitman, Mr., 92. 

PLAK, 311. 

Plato’s division of letters, 88, 

— on the allegory in myths, 492. 

Plautus and Nevius, 44. 

Plier, and chegar, 30. 

Plum and Feathers, 653. 

Plural in Cochin Chinese, 33-34. 

mvedpa Widdv, 137 n. 

Poetical metaphors, cases of, 479. 

Polynesian, the root of Indo- 
European languages, 9. 

— numerals, 27. 

— — changes in, since Cook’s time, 
29. 

— dialectic regeneration in, 29. 

— multitude of dialects, 37. 

— Te pi, the custom of, 38. 

— languages, s represented by h, 
178. 

— nor in, 180. 

— words all end in a vowel, 208. 

— grammar, 260 n. 

— every verb can be used as a verb 
or substantive in, 378. 

—all thinking, speaking in the 
stomach, 85. 

Polyonymous, many-named, 454. 

Polyonymy, 700. 

Po-mare, 39. 

Pomtis, five in Oscan, 307. 

Poor alphabets, 176. 

Pope, Dr., on Grimm’s Law in 
Tamil, &c., 260, 

Pope Innocent ITT on barnacles, 671. 

Poseidon, worshipped by the Holian 
family, 546. 

Pott, Prof., on roots, 379. 

Prakrit dialects in India, 44. 


my- 


736 


Prakrit dialects used by female char- 
acters in Sanskrit dramas, 44. 

Pratisikhyas, 89, 89 n. 

Prayer of the Athenians, 546. 

— of Achilles, 552. 

Present, the, in Bask, 24. 

Proizd, the day before yesterday, 
564. 

Proles, 374 1. 

Pronouns in Negro English, 226. 

Prosa, 350. 

Protagoras expelled from Athens, 
Als 

— on the gods, 528. 

Proto-Aryan language, 184. 

Psalmist, human language of the, 
559- 

Psild, 89. 

Pséphos, mere noise, 84. 

Pythagoras’ saying on ‘that which 
gives name,’ 398. 

— vision of the soul of Homer, 491. 


Qiné, quéna, 248. 

Qu, followed by a, changed into p, 
in Dacia, Igo. 

Quail, Sk. vartika, 626. 

Quality, timbre, tonfarbe, 95. 

—- of tone, 98. 

Qualities of vowels, 99. 

Quatuor, four, 216. 

Queen, 321, 322,-323, 

— is Gothic qéns, 247. 

— mother, 322. 

Quercus, 282, 295. 

Quilt, 658. 

Quinque and pente, 307. 

Quirinus, 566. 


R and 1, Helmholtz on, 149. 

— difficult to pronounce, 179. 

— unknown in several languages, 
179-180. 

— and 1, confusion between, 186. 

— changed to 1, 205. 

— in better, 275. 

Radical and poetical metaphor, 451. 

—- metaphor, cases of, 456. 

Radicals, 3,000, in Bishop Wilkins’ 
language, 69. 


INDEX. 


Rae, Dr., on Polynesian languages, 
as the origin of Aryan tongues, 
8,9, 9%. 

Raisonniren, 310. 

Ramsay, Dean, 134. 

Rangcon, 340. 

Raratongan, 176n, 178. 

Rasa, 579. 

Rational elimination, 403. 

Raumer, R. von, go. 

— hard and soft letters, 142 n. 

‘Real character,’ or written lan- 
guage of Wilkins, 64. 

Reason, 710. 

Reason and language inseparable, 
70. 

— with our senses, we cannot, 707. 

Reasoning, used synonymously with 
general mental activity, 83. 

Reddo, from dare, 234. 

Redemption, 340. 

Refreshment, 336. 

Regen and rain, 350. 

Regular recurrence of phenomena, 
effect of, on myths, 640. 

Reibungsgeriiusch, 140. 

Reinaud on algorismus, 339. 

Religion and mythology, 524, 525. 

— ancient, without mythology, 526, 
52. 

— Christianity and heathendom, 
531. 

— history of, a history of language, 
530. 

— first sense of the Godhead, 549. 

— Philosophers on ancient, 549- 
550: 

Renfrewshire dialect, 173. 

Rennthier, name for the Great Bear 
in Greenland, 461 n. 

Renouf, Le Page, answer to G. C. 
Lewis, 3 n. 

Resmus and remus, 351 n. 

Rex, from regere, 321. 

Rich alphabets, 174. 

Ridley on Australian languages, 
189. 

Ridu-pa, bee, 417 n. 

Rien, 441. 

Riegel and rail, 350. 


IND EX. 


Rigveda, the, 518. 

— translation of, needed, 518. 

— Langlois’ translation, 519. 

— Prof. Wilson’s, 519. 

— Grassmann’s, 519. 

— Ludwig’s, 520. 

—names of the geds still intel- 
ligible in the, 522. 

Riksha, bright, 459. 

Ring, 336. 

Rising sun, names for the, 625- 
633. 

Rizomata, roots, 374. 

RU ld, 317. 

Roger Bacon, 708 n. 

— — on barnacles, 677. 

— — Views on language, 366. 

Rohits, horses of Agni, 471. 

Rolleston, Prof., 93. 

— on the vocal organs, 102. 

Roman colonists brought Latin first 
into England, 338. 

Romanic sounds in English, 174. 

— languages, tendency to simplifi- 
cation in, 218. 

— languages, Littré on M. M.’s 
view of the origin of the, 
346 n. 

— dialects, the modern, 306. 

Romans destitute of aspirated con- 
sonants, 194. 

Roots as ultimate facts, 375. 

— conception of, in India, 375. 

—and words identical in gome 
languages, 378. 

— different views of the nature of, 
378. 

— are words in Chinese, 379. 

— Pott on, 379. 

— not mere abstractions, 381. 

— clusters of, 406. 

— are phonetic types, 407. 

— in Hindu grammar 1,700, 421. 

— had originally a material mean- 
ing, 450. 

Rose of the Quarter Sessions, 653 n. 

Rosny, Léon de, on Cochin-Chinese, 
213 

Rossignole and lusciniola, 205, 209 n. 

Roth, Prof., on the myth of Sira, 597. 


737 


Roth, Prof., on Saranyf, 602, 642. 

— — on Jemshid, 644. 

Roumanian, Latin qu followed by a 
in, 308. 

Rubbing down, mradati, 424. 


S, absent in Australian languages, 
178. 

— before a consonant, 215. 

— British words beginning with, 
215 1. 

— Tamil words in, 215 2. 

Sacre and saker, 289. 

Sacrement, 340. 

Seelig and silly, 310. 

Sage, Lat. salvia, 363. 

— Lat. sapius, 363. 

St. Augustine on meaning in the 
sound of words, 408, 

— Augustine’s arguments against 
heathenism, 531. 

— Christopher, 682. 

— George, 687. 

— Patrick, 687. 

— Paul at Athens, 534. 

St. Ursula, 684. 

— her companion Undecimella, 685. 

Salt, as a scientific term, 59. 

Salvus and sollus, 356. 

Salwey, 363. 

Same word takes different forms in 
different languages, 325. 

— — in the same language, 330. 

Sand, malma, 424. 

Sandwich Islands, king of, wanted 
to invent a new language, 41. 

Sankara, on Vedanta-Stitra, 77 2, 

Sanskrit plays, female characters 
use Prakrit in, 44. 

— 4 in, represents three sounds, 124. 

— palatal letters in, 152, 

— soft aspirates, gh, dh, bh, 161. 

— alphabet transcribed, 170. 

— letters wanting in, 178. 

— consonants in, 180. 

—alone has the entire variety of 
consonantal contact, 231. 

— no f, no soft sibilants in, 178. 

— causative verbs in, 274. 

— past participles in, 274. 


II. 3B 


738 


Sanskrit roots, 376. 

—and Greek Mythology, Sir W. 
Jones on, 517. 

San Verena, or Saint Vrain, the 
tower of, 469. 

Sapius, sage, 183. 

Sap(t)an, Sk., sibun, Gothic, 273. 

Saram4 and Helena, 577, 586. 

— and Hermes, 577. 

— Dr. Kuhn on, 577. 

— identical with storm, 578. 

— and the Panis, dialogue between, 


579- . 

— story told by Sayana, 581. 

— asking for a drink of milk, 582. 

— same as Helena, 586. 

— messenger of the gods, 593. 

— the dog, 596. 

Saraméya, dawn children, 594. 

— and Hermes, 580. 

— twilight or first breeze of dawn, 
599: 

Saranyd, meaning wind and cloud, 
578, 642. 

— and Erinys, 598. 

— sing., aname of the son of Varuna, 
or of Yama, 599. 

— the running light, 637. 

— the Dawn, 693. 

Sarit, Sk., river, 76. 

Sarvari, Sk. name for night, 595. 

Sasa, hare, Sk., hara, A.S., 273. 

Satya, Sk., true, 440. 

Savaiki, original form of Hawaii, 
135. 

Savarni, name for Manu, 630. 

Savitar, 480. : 

— the Sun, 481. 

— or Sarya, 481. 

SaxoGrammaticus on barnacles, 667. 

Scala, échelle, 216. 

Schelling on the necessity of change 
in nomadic languages, 36. 

— on words as necessary to human 
consciousness, 83. 

— on the religious instinct, 536. 

Scherer on Lautverschiebung, 264, 
265. 

Schlecht, meant originally good, 
309, 309 n. 


INDEX. 


Schlegel on Chinese Te pi, 42. 
Schmerz, 425. 

Schon, schon, 310. 

School, pronounced suku in Ewe, 


209. 

Schwartz on Mythology, 641. 

Science of Language, materials for, 
ie 

—— general principles of, con- 
tested, 6. 

— — special departments of, re- 
examined, 8. 

——nothing to do with skulls, 
296. 

— of man, 7. 

— of thought, 49. 

Scylla, 503. 

Sea, mare, 415. 

Séd, by itself, 308. 

See with our reason, we cannot, 

ron 

Seigneur, sieur, 318. 

Seirios, 598. 

Selbstlauter, 94. 

Selene, myths of, 521. 

Semetipsissimum, 326. 

Semitic languages, never begin a 
word with two consonants, 
212. 

Senate, 318. 

Seneca Indians, catch of the breath 
among, 173. 

Senior, Sir, 318. 

Sensation, animals have, 71. 

—and perception, distinction be- 
tween, I00. 

Sense, 710. 

Sensus numinis, 549. 

Septemtriones, 463. 

Septem triones, 465. 

Sere, sirl, in A. D. 1127, 310%. 

Sericum, not Chinese, 179. 

— from Seres, 179. 

Serment, 340. 

Setting sun, Yama the, 634. 

Setu, means binding, 616 n. 

— prison, 616 n. 

Seven Rishis, or Seven Sages, 460. 

— robbers, 462. 

— sisters, 473. 


INDEX. 


Sheridan, 130. 

Sherif, scire-geréfa, 319 n. 

Ship and skitf, 336. 

Shunt, to, 403. 

Sibilants, soft, wanting in Sanskrit, 
178. 

Sicilian, change of f to ¢ in, Ig1 n. 

Siege of Troy =siege of the East by 
the solar powers, 586. 

Sievers, Professor, 121. 

Signs, 270, in Ellis’s alphabet, 113. 

— of taverns, 653. 

Sijum, sijuth, not organic, 222 2. 

Silly, 310. 

Silver, namés for, 293. 

Sinibaldo de Mas, his ‘ Idéographie,’ 
DO: 

Sir, 318. 

Sira, the sun, 597. 

—a name of Vayu, 597. 

Siren, the, 97. 

Skins cannot exist without animals, 
85. 

Skulls, Science of Language nothing 
to do with, 296. 

Sky, earth, fire, as divine powers, 
542. 

Slaves, worshipped the god of light- 
ning only, 550. 

Sledn, slagen, 273. 

Slavonic words, if genuine, have no 
f, 179 n. 

Slawit for Slaithewaite, 196 m. 

Sloop and shallop, 336. 

Slumber, 202. 

Smar, Sk., to desire, 427. 

Smart, 130, 425. 

SNU, Sk., to flow, 364, 365. 

Snusha, Sk., snoru, A.S., 273. 

Society Islands, dialect destitute 
of gutturals, 177. 

called Tahiti, 178 7. 

Socrates on the gods, 491. 

Soft and hard letters, 154. 

Sois, sutis, 221. 

Solar mythology, 639. 

Sollemnis, 356. 

Sollas, 356. 

Sonant checks, or media, 153. 

— g, d, b, in English words, 243. 


739 


Song of Solomon in dialects, 2 n. 

Sonne, Dr., on charis, 484. 

Sooth, 440. 

Sophocles on Zeus, 555. 

Soul of language, 50. 

Sound of words has no independent 
existence, 84. 

— measurement of, 122. 

— derivation of word, 183. 

— sound etymology independent of, 
303. 

—and speech, analogy between, 
283: 

— painting in, 384. 

— in Italian, 385. 

South African converts still pray to 
heathen deities, 532. 

Spada, espée, épée, 216. 

Special departments of the Science 
of Language re-examined, 8. 

Spécieuse générale, the, of Leibniz, 
52. 

Specific centres of language, 407. 

Speech, interjections the elements 
of speech, 51. 

— no reason without, 78. 

— organs of, 102 et seq. 

Spelling reformers, 91. 

Spirits, 443. 

Spiritus, 449. 

— asper, 136, 137. 

— lenis, 137. _ 

Spuo, to spit, 253. 

Stabu, stabulum, 77. 

STAMBH, 270. 

Star, 241, 242, 405. 

Star-as, Sk., strewers of light, 242, 
465. 

Starboard, 331. 

State languages, 47. 

Steel, kila, Hawaian, 186. 

Steel pen, 288. 

Steenstrup estimates the age of 
peat in Denmark at 4000 years, 
287. 

Stella, is 465. 

Stiggan or staggan, to sting, 373. 

Sting, to, 373. 

Stoicheia, etymology of, 374. 


| Stoicheion, etymology of, 371. 


BIB 


740 


Stoichos, root stich, 372. 

Strassburg, Strataburgum, 254. 

Stratum =street, 338. 

Strength and loudness of a note, 95. 

— pitch, and quality, 95. 

Sub and super, 349 7. 

Sub divo, 547. 

Subhaga, fortunate, an epithet of 
the Dawn, 583. 

Subtle, 349. 

Successive change, 182. 

Sun, the golden handed, 479, 480. 

— and Dawn, chief object of Aryan 
myths, 620. 

— Manare, name for the rising, 625. 

Suna, the wind, 597. 

— a name of Indra, 597. 

Sundm, meaning auspiciously, 596. 

Sunasirau, 596. 

Siindfluth, 653. 

Stintemu, Walachian, we are, 221. 

Supernatural, the, 698. 

Saryd, the sun, as feminine, 610. 

Sveta, white, 75. 

Sweet, Mr., go, 121. 

—on the fallacy of imperceptible 
transition, 266. 

Swefn, A.S., svapna, Sk., 277. 

Syamam ayas, dark brown metal, 


292. 
Syllables, closed, 208. 
Symphona, 89. 
Synonymes, 454. 
Synthetic sounds, Powell on, 186n. 


T, interchanged with k, 185. 

~— in the Aino language, 190. 

— changed to z, 254. 

Tableau, tabula, 77. 

Tabu, the linguistic, or Te pi, 42. 

Tacitus on the German name for 
‘the hidden thing,’ 549. 

Tahiti, rapid change in words be- 
tween Cook’s and Vancouver's 
visits, 39. 

— custom of Te pi in, 38, 47. 

Tail of a fox, dog, and hare, dif- 
ferent words for, 404. 

- Tale, Zahl, 71. 

Tamehameha, or Kamehameha, 187. 


INDEX. 


Tameia-meia, or Kamehameha, in- 
vents a new language, 41. 
Tamil words beginning with s, 215 n. 

Tar, dar, and dhar, 232. 

Tasmania, Ukuhlonipa in, 43 n. 

Taujan, zauen, to do quickly, 240, 
467 n. 

Tavern signs, 653. 

Team, 466, 467. 

Tear and larme, 327. 

— asru in Sk., 367. 

Techmer’s ‘Internazionale Zeitschrift 
fir Allgemeine Sprachwissen- 
schaft,’ 91. 

Teem, to, 467. 

Tela, texela, 348. 

Lellsevonny ie 

Temo, 465. 

Ten, decem, 257. 

Tengri, in Tartaric, three meanings 
of, 550. 

Tenses in Cochin Chinese, 34. 

Tenues, p, t, k, 141. 

— how formed, 142. 

Tenuis, the, 88. 

Te pi, custom of, 38, 47. 

— — Hale, on, 40. 

— — exists in China, 42. 

Tepuztli, hatchet, 289. 

Terminations in French, 56. 

Terzeruolo, 289. 

Terzuolo, 289. 

Th and dh, 145. 

Th and f, 195. 

That, 250. 

Thausing, go. 

Thémis, law, 244. 

Theodoric, 657. 

Theomenia, 689. 

Theophorus, name of St. Ignatius, 
683. 

Theés, derived by Plato from Théein, 
514. 

— by Herodotus from tithénai, 514. 

Thermés, Gk., and Goth. warmjan, 
484. 

Thersites, 244. 

Thin, 250. 

Thisl, A.S. name 
Wain, 466 n. 


for Charles’s 


INDEX. 


Thiuda, people, 240. 

Thiwadva, servitude, 275. 

Thlinkit language, 177 n. 

Thomas Cantimpratensis, 673. 

Thomson, Dr., his researches in 
Finnish, 257, 257 n. 

Thor, Midlnir, the hammer of, 416. 

Thorax, 103. 

Thou, 250. 

Thought, Science of, 40. 

— impossible without language or 
signs, 70. 

Thraétana, transition of, into Feri- 
din, 644. 

Three, 250. 

— heavens, 540. 

— goats, sign of the, 654. 

Threshing-floor, aloé, 417. 

Thré-m, Old Norse, edge, 233. 

Thumb, word for, in Finnish, gradu- 
ally meant finger, 404. 

Thunder, 390. 

tO, Aly, 

Thunor, A.S., from root TAN, 
399. 

Thuringians, 16 n. 

Thymés, wrath, 239. 

Thymés the soul, 436. 

Thyringas, the Thuringians, 15. 

— in Thorington, 16 n. 

Ti, Sk. suffix, 274. 

Tien chu, Lord of heaven, 550. 

— sky and day, 550. 

— name of God, 550. 

Timber, 248. 

Timbre of sound, tor. 

— of instruments, 109, 

Timon, shaft, 466. 

Titles, 316. 

Tivar, nom. plur., the gods, 571. 

Tiw, A.S., 538. . 

TI for cl, 199. 

Tlear for clear, 199. 

To be, 447. 

‘To have pity,’ in New Guinea, how 
expressed, 438. 

Tomber, 332. 

Tonare, and Sk. stan, 465 n. 

Tone, known early, 94, 95. 

Tones and noises, 94. 


741 


Tonga or Friendly Islands, 178 n. 

Tongue and ear, 121. 

Tonos, from tan, 95. 

Tooke, Horne, on abstract words, 
436. 

Torus and sternere, 465 n. 

Totonaca language, 177 n. 

Totus, 240. 

Tour sans Venin, la, 468. 

Town, 314”. 

— ton, in Paddington, 130. 

Trachea, 103. 

Traditions gather round recent 
historical characters, 657. 

Transliteration, 165, 170. 

Treble roots, 232. 

Tree, 248. 

Trevisa on barnacles, 670. 

Tribulation, 438. 

Trikephalos, applied to Hermes as 
well as Kerberos, 595. 

Trills, 148. 

Trio, 465. 

Triu, Gothic tree, 283. 

Triumph, 340. 

Troy, siege of, 503. 

True, from Sk. darh, 440. 

Trumbull on the onomatopeic names 
of animals, 386. 

Trump card, 340. 

Truth, 440. 

Ose 40; 

Tuesday, 570, 571. 

Tuisco, twilight, 571 n. 

Tuning-forks, the a’ of, vibrations 
in, 96. 

Turanian races, absence of general 
names in the northern, 404. 

Tuta, tota, tuticus, 240. 

Twins, the, 627. 

— day and night, 631. 

Two, 248. 

Two consonants beginning a word, 
unknown in Semitic languages, 
212, 

Tychsen and the 
scriptions, 4. 

Tyr, called one-handed, 48r. 

— the god of victory, 482, 570. 

— the name in English places, 571. 


cuneiform in- 


742 


U, sound of, 125. 

Ukuhlonipa, 43, 47. 

— in Tasmania, 43 n. 

Ulysses and Nausikaa, 530. 

Umstand, 344. 

Undecimella, companion 
Ursula, 685. 

Ung, as a termination, 17. 

— soon encroached on by ing, 17. 

Universal language, an, 52. 

— — of Leibniz, 52. 

— — of Wilkins, 53. 

Unpass, 345. 

Unterhalten, 344. 

Up, in child language, 380. 

Upa and upari, Sk., 349 n. 

Uralic languages, avoidance of in- 
itial and final consonants, 210. 

Uranos maimed by Kronos, 488. 

Urna, wulna, wulla, 277 n. 

— vabhi, 311. 

Urna, Sk. = Gothic wulle, 348 n. 

Urdr, Verdandi, Skuld, 694. 

Urva is called drilha, 580n. 

Urvocal, 129. 

Ushas, the Dawn, 8k., identical with 
Gk. Charis, Aphrodite, 474, 
486, 522, 583. 

— compared to a horse, 603. 


Of FSi 


V, how produced, 145. 
VABH, root, 311. 
Vahni, flames of fire and _ horse, 


472. 
Val-hnot, Icelandic for walnut, 467. | 


Vancouver, on changes in Tahitian, 


39- 

VARDH, to grow, 270. 

Variations in position of the articu- 
lating organs in producing the 
same sound, 125. 

Variyah, in das Weite, 580 n. 

Vartika, Sk., quail, 626. 

Varuna, 545. 

Varunas, the two, 615. 

Vasatya, the son of Night, 608. 

Vastoshpati, 590. 

Vayu, called Sira, 597. 

Vedic Pantheon, 604. 

Véjovis, an old Italian deity, 566. 


INDEX. 


Velar k, 280, 281. 

Vellus and villus, 348 n. 

Velum pendulum, importance of, 
132. 

— from vexillum, 349. 

Venus standing for vegetables, 547. 

Ver, vers, verre, vert, 360. 

Verbal substantives in ung, 17. 

Verner, 272. 

— on changes in Gothic, 275. 

Verwitterung of Curtius, 199. 

Very, 535. 

Viands, 76. 

Vibration without harmonics, IoT, 

Vibrations in the notes we hear, 95, 


96. 

— double and single, 96n. 

Victoria and the custom of Te pi, 40. 

VID SKE roo 56; 

Vietor, Dr., 121. 

Vincentius Bellovacencis on _ bar- 
nacles, 671. 

Virtus, 692. 

Visible speech, 114. 

Vocabulary, Bellows’s, 171. 

Vocal organs, 102. 

— chords, 107. 

Voice, the, 94. 

Volapiik, 69. 

Voler, to fly, velare, 360. 

to steal, 361. 

Voltaire on etymology, 298. 

Vossius, his work, 506. 

Vowel, pitch peculiar to each, 112. . 

Vowels, 108, 115, 125. 

—the qualities, or colours, or 
timbres of the voice, 109. 

— whispered, III. 

— as mutes, III. 

— Bell’s system of, 117. 

— nasal, 133. 

— final in Uralic languages, 211. 

— added to aid pronunciation, 215. 

Vox clandestina, I12. 

Vrai, 335. 

Vrishakapayi, 610. 

Vrishakapi, the sun, 610. 

Vritra, same as Orthros, 595. 


_ Vyafigana, Sk. name for consonants, 


134. 


IND EX. 


W, in English, 146. 

— — German, 146. 

Wabble, to, 312. 

Wallace on the Malays of Celebes, 


37- 

— ‘Man in the Malay Archipelago,’ 
38 n. 

Wallachian, 190, I1g1 x. 

Walnut, 467. 

Walsch, Walschland, 467. 

Walsingham, 16. 

Walshnut, 468 n. 

Walton on barnacles, 664. 

Warden, guardian, 335. 

Weal, modlops, 412. 

Webster, Miss H., 281. 

Wed, to, 334. 

Weird, the past, 693. 

— sisters, 693. 

Wh, a whispered counterpart of w, 
146 n. 

Wheat, names for, 74. 

Wheatstone’s critique on Willis, 110, 

Whispered ti, 112. 

Whispering, I11. 

White, or wheat, 74, 75. 

— mice, legend of the two, 594. 

Who and what, 249. 

Whole, hale, 356. 

Wile, cunning, 330, 333. 

Wilkins, Bishop, his Essay on a 
Philosophical Language, 54-69. 

— — his Catalogue raisonné, 57-59. 

——number of radicals in his 
artificial language, 69. 

Will, animals have, 71. 

Willis’s ‘ Vowel Sounds,’ gr. 

— experiments, I10. 

Wilson, Professor, his translation of 
the Rigveda, 519. 

Wilson’s list of onomatopoetic names 
of animals, 386. 

Window, 355. 

— vindauga, 355. 

‘ Wind sings,’ 482. 

Wise, manner, 330, 333. 

Wit, not judgment, guides in the 
formation of names, 74. 

Wither to, mla, 422. 

Woden, a king of the Saxons, 503. 


743 


Wohlfahrt, 84. 
Women, influence of, on language, 


43> 44- 

— language of the Caribe, 46. 

Wood, Germans wrote on, 288 n. 

Words are signs added to our con- 
ceptions, 81, 

— history of, 312. 

— expressive of immaterial ideas 
come from words expressive of 
material objects, 311. 

— material meaning of, 434. 

— abstract, 691. 

— influence of, on thought, 700. 

Wulft-s, Gothic, 274. 

Wyrd, destiny, 694. 


Xenophanes and the gods, 489. 
Xerxes, cuneiform inscriptions of, 


AP 


Y, how formed, 143. 

Yama, two dogs of, 594. 

— father of Saranyu, 599. 

— the twin, 630. 

— the lover of the girls, the husband 
of the wives, 631. 

— the setting sun, 634. 

— king of the departed, 635. 

— and Yami, 628. 

— — the first couple of mortals, 642. 

-—— god of death, 636. 

— not an Indian Adam, 644. 

— Trita, and Krisasva of the Veda, 
their correspondence with 
heroes of the Avesta, 644. 

Yamasih, twin mother, name for 
the Dawn, 628. 

Yaska, on the deities of the sky, 
607, 608, 609. 

Yellow and white, not distinguished 
in some dialects, 403. 

Yes, various meanings of, 32. 

Yesterday, 243. 

Yestersun, 541. 

Yima, in the Avesta, 643. 

— Burnouf on, 643. 

Ylg-r, Old Norse, she-wolf, 274. 

York for Eofor-wic, 201. 

Yorkshire pronunciation, 196 n. 


744, 


Z, how produced, 144. 

Zagel and tail, 350. 

Zahlen, to tell, 71. 

Zauber, 467 n. 

Zend, no | in, 180. 

Zenon, Juno, 567. 

Zeus, Dyaus, &c., 516. 

— the eye of, 527n. 

— the true God of the Greeks, 529. 

— called Kronios, 544 n. 

— the Panhellenic, 546. 

— rains from necessity, 547. 

— the supreme Deity, 548, 551. 

— the Homeric, full of contradie- 
tions, 552. 

— of Dodona, 552 n. 

— Pindar on, 553. 

— Aischylus on, 554. 


INDEX. 


Zeus, Sophocles on, 555. 

— the sky personified, 556. 

— and Danaé, 556. 

— father of Aeacus, 557. 

— and Europa, 557. 

— and Jupiter, 563. 

Ziestac = Dienstag, 570. 

Zimmer, 248. 

Zins, census, tins, 256. 

Zio, Jupiter, 538. 

Zohak, or Ash dahak, identical with 
Agi dahika, 644. 

Zohar, the, on barnacles, 671. 

Zéon, 400. 

Zora, a name for the Dawn, 476. 

Zukunft, 345. 

Zwar, 310. 

Lweifel, 248. 


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